bullying? racism? or overreacting?

[beachbum2000]

I had a situation occur at work and I'm torn about how to react to it. Very busy hospital med/surg floor with max patient load of 5 patients for each nurse. 5 nurses working the floor, 3 of one race and 2 of the other. there is one "clinical supervisor" who's the same race as the group of 3. the secretary is also the same race as the group of 3. (so that's 5 of one race, and 2 of the other)

Throughout the day there are admissions and discharges. The secretary assigns the patients based on who has discharges to keep the staffing numbers equal, there is no attention paid to acuity or work load (this is a normal occurrence for this floor). Frequently there are times when a nurse will go down to 3 patients because of discharges, while everyone else stays at 5, and that nurse will get back to back admits within minutes of each other. The clinical supervisor on this floor does not assist with admits (not even to put isolation equipment in patient rooms).

On this day, 1 of the nurses, from the race group of 5, goes from 5 patients to 0 patients within a few hours. That nurse is only assigned 1 new admission, that does not arrive until after shift change.

Another nurse, of the race group of 5, starts with 4 patients... discharges 1 and receives a transfer early in the shift... this nurse stays at 4 and is not asked again to take any more admits. (The secretary is observed and overheard pulling this nurse aside saying that she knows that she won't give her any more patients)

One of the nurses of the race group of 2, starts with 4, admits 1, discharges 1, and is asked to take another admission although according to "turns in line" it should be the nurse from the other race group.

The second nurse of the race group of 2, starts with 5, discharges 1, admits 1, and has one pending discharge near the end of the shift. 45 minutes before shift change, the clinical supervisor says to this nurse "can you just take report on the new patient coming up" (This will put this nurse at 6 patients which is over the max patient load. This is this nurses first day off of orientation, this nurse is a new grad). The nurse takes report, is attempting to discharge the one patient, the clinical supervisor is "nagging" them to ensure that isolation equipment is in the room, the secretary assigns the patient to this nurse on the board. And when the patient arrives on the unit the nurse is told "your patient is here" even though this nurse was told all they had to do was take report.

I'm sorry if the story is hard to keep up with. I tried to keep it as simple as I could, while still getting the important details across.

Is the new nurse being "bullied" by the clinical supervisor and the secretary? Why didn't the nurse that went to 0 patients have to take more than 1 admit? Why was the nurse from the race group of 5 skipped over for admits (there is never attention paid to acuity of patients only numbers)? Is it racism because of the difference in treatment of the two race groups? AND if you were a manager would you want this brought to your attention? If you were the one bringing it to your managers attention what would the best way be, in order to not sound whiney or indignant?

Again I apologize for the length of the post, just trying to paint a picture.

[RescueNinjaKy]

Address the issue at the spot, document, report to upper management. Goes no where? Then move up to the next chain. You have documentation and charts are easily reviewed to see what the ratios were.

That or look for another job. I would not want to work at a place where there is such a low level of respect. As a charge nurse I look at acuity, how caught up they are, and go from there. If they only have 2 patients but not caught up yet. I can always help settle a patient. But I ain't leaving no nurses at 0 patients, cuz why do I need them on the floor then.

[sammiesmom]

I am an English speaking lighter skinned person and I am a minority in my community and hospital. I'm not making this up. Of the nurses in our unit, myself and one other nurse are totally English speaking Americans. The rest are from other countries. The skin color is not my problem. The language issue very much is. Discussing medical decisions and pertinent data in Spanish is near unconscionable to me. But it happens daily. The patients demand it. They refuse to speak English. No other nationality is given such preferential treatment. I understand in other communities where Hispanics are immigrating that they are being forced to learn English. Here, if you don't speak some Spanish, it is horrible the treatment one gets from patients and staff with that one issue of communication. In addition, it is difficult to get a job without being bilingual. It is so hard to constantly be in need of a translator. My children have been cussed out and reported to management for not speaking Spanish in their respective jobs here. It is rude to the Americans that have graciously opened up this country to immigrants fleeing a very bad situation. Without any regard for what has been done for them, we are being treated like foreigners in our own country. And the nurses who are bilingual at times have no regard for these facts.

That is so sad. There is a reason why at one point someone in the government wanted to declare English as the national language. This is not a new tactic. Coming from country with 1000 dialects, the government where I came from declared a national language. You have to unite the nation under one tongue! As an immigrant, I can only shake my head because I worked hard to improve my English and still trying to improve so I can communicate as well as a native English speaker. That is how I think though and it baffles me why they do not try to learn English. They are either jerks or have very low IQ and maybe its the low IQ that makes it difficult to learn another language. The only humanitarian way to deal with it is to provide a translator or you have to step up and learn a second language because you are probably more capable than them.

[jax777]

The original post was pretty hard to follow.

It sounds like the clinical supervisor is a jerk and the secretary is playing favorites. There is not enough information here about interpersonal relationships to judge what is going on. The OP presented what information there was in a biased manner so that it would look like race was the only difference.

Unless the clinical supervisor said something like "You dirty Polynesian, take the new admit," you're never going to prove discrimination because of race.

It sounds like two different incidents: 1) poor bed assignment by secretary, and 2) overbearing behavior by clinical supervisor.

It also sounds like crappy teamwork. The nurse with 0 patients should have immediately stepped up and taken the admit. I wouldn't want to work with a bunch of nurses that would gang up and throw a new grad under the bus like that. It sounds more like hazing than discrimination.

There may be something going on behind the scenes you don't know about.

I totally agree with canigraduate. Sounds much more like supervisor is not good at her job and also playing favorites.