ANGRY

[tarheel15nurse]

I know the topic has been closed but I still wanted to respond to why nurses are so angry. And AGAIN to the people that keep chiming in and saying get a new profession, you are just adding to the problem.

You see, nurses who are angry are doing just that. They are getting off the floor and into management. Not that they are happier but just trying to not waste their education since most of us are still paying on outrageous student loans. How about instead of jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else who does not understand the anger, you try to listen.

No one is listening to the nurses who are begging and pleading for lower nurse/patient ratio. And not all nurses like twelve hour shifts. Numerous studies have shown the dangers to patients after the ninth hour. Nurses are burnt out.

The biggest complaint I have is the assumption by EVERYONE that there is a one to one ratio. I'm sorry if I did not answer the call bell as fast as you would have liked for the tenth time because you asked you mother who has dementia AGAIN, if she has to use the bathroom and she said yes. (when she clearly says yes to everything) I was in the room next door assisting someone who is about to code. Your mother can wait to be changed.

We don't even change our babies diapers as often as families want theirs families changed. And while I am assisting five other patients without an aid or secretary to answer the never ending phones, please take the opportunity to pick up a fork or spoon and assist your loved one if they can not eat. Most of us have fed a child before. It is certainly an option. I'm not being insensitive just tired of families treating me like their private paid nurse. I work for the hospital not directly for just you.

It isn't MY fault if the doctor will not come back to the unit for the fifth time to address the same issue he/she told you was addressed. Take it up with them. Stop yelling and screaming at me in the hall because it is a Saturday evening and you failed to show up all week and want to stroll in and have a one on one consultation. I wish families would write their congressmen, and every health department office possible including the state board and report their concerns that nurses need laws passed to mandate lower nurse/patient ratios. This is the number one issue with nurses across the board and it gets shoved in the closet. I can relate every safety issue my employer has addressed to nurse/patient ratio.

Rarely do I EVER get a lunch break on my 12 hour shift. Twelve hours of running and answering to everyone why you didn't get to their request yet. And news flash, the twelve hours includes up to passing off my patients but still continues until about the thirteenth or fourteenth hour of finishing up everything that you couldn't get done for administration. I'm yelled at by everyone hour after hour. "mama needs ice" "daddy hasn't walked today" "my son needs his dilaudid" because it has been two hours and he is sitting on his laptop and talking on his blue tooth with his friends. "the food taste horrible" "we haven't seen a doctor in days" yada yada yada.

I'd love to have a patient load where I can be a REAL nurse. Get lab results, give a great bath, change linens, get in touch with docs. But when you are treated like the scum of the workforce and called from room to room for insignificant tasks, it is very easy to get burnt out and YES become a little angry. So before you guys are so quick to tell nurses they don't care and to find another profession, you better be careful. You may get what you ask for. There's a shortage already. And one day you may need healthcare and you'll be wondering where all the staff is. Well, guess what, they got other jobs.

[HappyWife77, BSN, RN]

Some days are better than others, that's for sure however there is no nurse shortage.

Try reading the threads right here on Allnurses...

Have you any vacation time? Sounds like one might be in order...

[tarheel15nurse]

There's a huge nursing shortage. I left the full time position and now work for staffing resources. They call daily and can't fill the open shifts. I also work part time in long term care. We lost seven nurses this month alone and are having to pull from one of our larger facilities. Both settings, the hospital and the long term care company I work for (which has five skilled nursing homes, three assisted living facilities) hire in masses and can't keep nurses longer than ninety days. So, in MY area, they are in need of changing something. I come from a long line of nurses and doc and am a native to my community. This is a topic, I'm well educated in. (for my area)

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

There's a huge nursing shortage.

Really? In which area do you live?

Some states, such as California, have a 43 percent unemployment rate for new grad RNs. I am in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas and we have upwards of 300 unemployed nurses applying for each acute care job opening, so there's absolutely no nursing shortage in the city where I live.

[klone, MSN, RN]

North Carolina, I'm guessing

[tarheel15nurse]

I am in Virginia. There are three major hospitals within fifteen minutes from my house. I've got lifelong friends and friends I met during nursing school. We network all the time. Many of us have tried several different areas of nursing and so far, I've not found one nurse that is fulfilled with "floor nursing". Same complaint. Too many high acuity patients, not enough staff. And because we are considered a very "transient" area, there's not much competition in pay. All three keep within the same range. There are about four major hospitals within 45 minutes away. Same situation. Luckily I am float pool for now and the pay is double the base pay and still get shift diff if I work evenings so the only saving grace for me right now is that I make double for my trouble. Many nurses who have come from the West Coast or even north of where I am have complained about the conditions and pay here. I'm not in a position to move so looks like I'll be enjoying my summer and making a career change in the fall. I've given this profession almost ten years. Just seems to be getting worse, not better.

[toomuchbaloney]

Perhaps the pay and conditions contribute to the "nursing shortage" in your area?

Nurses who are angry are often experiencing compassion fatigue. They regularly empty their buckets for their patients with no mechanism to re-fill them, especially no mechanism in the workplace. Sometimes the employer is actually engaged in poking holes in the bucket of the nurse.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Sometimes the employer is actually engaged in poking holes in the bucket of the nurse.

Amen ...

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

The issue as I see it is that there may be a nursing "shortage" on some areas, however, facilities are unable and unwilling to hire enough staff to make it feasible to be a team on a unit.

If you have 3 nurse for 30+ patients and no ancillary staff, then of course nurses are going to say "enough" and move on. And if one is not keeping a nurse but for 90 days on average, then you don't have a shortage as much as you have an abundance of nurses who decline to work in poor conditions.

Add to that new graduates who need experience to work in most faciliites, and those who take new grads don't have enough preceptors staying long enough to make it work. And agencies can't exactly send a new nurse to take shifts.

There are many facilities who are now starting to give CNA certification courses and getting good results for employable CNA's to help. There are many facilities who have a mass of active volunteers who also help.

And there are many facilities who just want BSN prepared nurses to do it all. And most get burnt out pretty quickly. And those who are angry becoming managers is just adding fuel to the fire of a dysfunctional unit as opposed to taking that anger and making viable changes in a unit so that it is staffed appropriately.