Bad Nurse...Need Advice

[luvbug9956]

One of our unit's staff nurses is a very poor nurse and we have no support from the management about this subject. This nurse has NO bedside manner at all (and we work on an oncology/inpt chemo floor) and is verbally rude to patients and families (that is, if they are lucky enough that she acknowledges them at all!). I believe almost every staff nurse, as well as some registry nurses, have gone to the management with complaints. And yet, nothing is done!!! Here are just a few of the issues:

1. Ignores call bells, beeping IV pumps, and requests for help

2. Our policy is double-signing insulin, yet no doses are cosigned (is the pt getting them at all?)

3. Pt's state they dont remember getting their normal daily meds that day

4. Pt's state that they never were physically assessed, yet complete assessments are charted

5. IVs, PAC needles, central line dressings, and IV tubing are not changed per hospital policy

6. Blood transfusions are almost always left for the next shift, even if the order is from 9am

This RN has absolutely NO sense of teamwork. And actually, many of us end up pulling her share. For example, her pt came back from a test, needed to be pulled back into bed from stretcher...she sat, pulling up labs on the computer while 4 of us lifted her pt back into bed. We are all tired of the pts suffering. Day shift hates to work with her, and try to sign up on the schedule so that they dont work with her. Night shift hates to follow her because they spend their whole shift catching up on what should have been done and listening to pt complaints.

What boggles my mind is that she still works on our unit! The manager wants to have "written complaints" from us about her. To us, that is not our job...it should be the job of management to follow up on our complaints. Many of us do not want to be pulled into the middle by making formal, written complaints. This puts us in an akward and unfair position. Plus, there have been several written complaints from patients and families, and still nothing was done, which, to me, is a travesty. And the nurse is breaking hospital policies daily.

We are all about at our limit; but we dont want to leave this unit because the rest of the staff is so supportive and we love our oncology patients and what we do! We have an excellent reputation and this one nurse could ruin patient satisfaction!

Has anyone had this problem? How do we get management to listen and do their jobs!!!!!!!!!

[Stitchie]

Remember the adage 'it it wasn't documented it wasn't done'? It really applies in this situation.

Unfortunately, I have run into some of these types, perhaps not as blantantly irresponsible as your coworker, but a pain in the tushie nontheless.

The hospital's policy was that if you had firsthand knowledge of a procedure not being performed, it was your responsibility to get it in writing and make sure the manager saw it. I also kept a small 'diary' at home summarizing the days events. No patient names, but plenty of c/o one particular nurse. She'd spend her shift 'husband hunting' with the unattached (or soon-to-be unattached) docs and leaving the rest of her work for the rest of us.

It gets old fast, does it not?

My only thought is that eventually, the documentation you provide will no longer be ignorable from the management, and you will have done your patients a service by getting an incompentent, lazy, untrustworthy co-worker off the service.

Good luck to you!

[Haunted]

Get a pot going with your co workers to hire "Fast Eddie" to have a little chat with her after work!

[begalli]

I recommend writing incident reports on the objective things that you and your co-workers are experiencing.

2. Our policy is double-signing insulin, yet no doses are cosigned (is the pt getting them at all?)

5. IVs, PAC needles, central line dressings, and IV tubing are not changed per hospital policy

6. Blood transfusions are almost always left for the next shift, even if the order is from 9am

I would say that #'s 2, 5, and 6 are definitely incident report material.

1. Ignores call bells, beeping IV pumps, and requests for help

3. Pt's state they dont remember getting their normal daily meds that day

4. Pt's state that they never were physically assessed, yet complete assessments are charted

#'s 1,3, and 4 are subjective however I think the part about meds and assessments could possibly warrant an incident report as well.

If your manager wants documentation, give it to her. Incident reports are the perfect way to do it.