ANGRY

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.