i am sooo aggravated right now...the past few months have taken a toll on me & i have felt myself being turned into an absolute monster, do you hear me...? im more agitated/snappy than ive ever been towards everybody(except my residents). i work 12 hr night shifts & the load im expected to carry is too much. ive tried complaining, rationalizing & sharing suggestions for improvement with the don without success. she wont hear me out. she wont hear any of us. only a few others on nights have tried to talk to her & they got shut down like i did. the don said "nothing is going to change, it will stay like it is!" i have 40 residents half of which are rehabs. they are split up so i do 2 halls...i cant be in 5 places at once. every one of them wants their hs meds at the same time, not possible. the hs pass has been taking me 5 hours to do. once its done i have to do my charts which takes about 3 or 4 hours to do(>16/night),txs, skin checks, chart checks (3-60/night),sending meds back (usually takes 3 totes to send them all back, not counting narcs), checking meds in, checking for expired meds,checking the cna's flow sheets, giving prns all night long & documenting on that, getting the uas that day shift constantly puts down on the lab books, filling out the lab sheets.....just to name a few of the things done on nights. i heard a day nurse say "nights is easy, they only have to do a few more papers and thats it"....omg...i wanted to explode! most of the day nurses are know it alls who like to argue & think they are always right about everything. the don specifically said that all meds should be timed for the day shift unless its q 8 , q 12 or q hs specifically....when we had them changed, the day nurses went & changed all of them back to where we give them.....tell me why you would give freakin vitamin c, oscal, and eye vite at hs?????????? they do the same with the txs...on day shift they get a nurse per hall,a med aide on assisted, a charge nurse, 3 rns are in the bldg, plus they get a cna 2 that does all of their txs....we get nothing. changeover is the worst...we have assigned mars/tars to do...6 each for each ft nurse...yet..only about 4 of us actually do oursi found over 50 holes on the tars for last month..the don said that if they werent done then us night nurses were responsible for doing theirs for them....whatever! i will not do this again...next time i will not check or sign anybody elses...they can make their own med errors or get behind like we do...i dont care anymore. its gotten so bad that i physically feel sick when i pull in the parking lot....i keep headaches that turn into damn near migraines by the time i leave, my stomach hurts and burns all the time when im there, i always feel like i forgot something in the midst of doing everyone elses work it seems, i have made myself a dr. appt to see about starting some anxiety meds before i have a massive eruption in there. i think this is all a result of failure on mgmts behalf, as they seem to live by the code of if they dont know about it they dont have to fix it.she keeps giving us more and more to unrealistically do, yet offers no help or explanation &wont allow anyone to come help on that hs pass...there is a day nurse who gives acs insulins and meds when we come in at 7....which throws the night nurse on that hall off....and hs insulins have to be held and so do narcs....i mentioned this to the don before & all i got was "shes just slow"....slow my a@@! this was a military nurse! shes slack & lazy..not slow...ive seen her be at the top of her game before, this is unacceptable...luckily i dont have the added stress of working behind her cuz id be filling out med errors left and right. am i wrong to believe that if you are getting paid to do your job, you should do it...and if your job is to direct and manage....should that not be done? why do issues go unaddressed? is it just easier to pretend the issues dont exist vs dealing with them and figuring out a solution that will work? another thing...all of us on nights dont have a clue anymore about whats supposed to be going on....we ask and dont get any answers.....just looks. if i was a don, and my nurses had ideas that might work...the least i could do is hear what they are and see about getting things fixed....we were talkig one night and said that we all need to have real orientation since she changes things so much and nothing is ever enforced or followed through with on her part....i hope to be out of this place in about 2 yrs...once i get some finances dealt with and get to where i can afford a slight pay cut. the stress is just enormous. none of us are on the same page about anything. we all know different things that shes told us or put up notes about. its mass confusion all around. what is one supposed to do when they dont have a choice but stay where they are? i dont have a way out of here yet. im slowly working towards it best i can, then when the day comes that i can leave, i plan to run out the front door. just seems like an awful lot of unnecessary mess.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Hello, I am trying to post and i can not figure out how.Can U help me?
At the top of the page on the far left side of the yellow bar, it should say, Hi tumecaj1122. Just to the right of that, click on "my account". Then choose "user control panel" from the drop-down menu. There you should find details on how to do various things on allnurses. Good luck!
Get out of the nursing home asap!! I suggest hospital, unless you're an lpn, then get your rn and move to hospital. I could never do the nsg home, for all the reasons you described. If it's not working for you then fix it fast!!!! Good luck
Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.
If I were you, I would quit, get a job waitressing/Starbucks and save myself the stress until I could find something less ulcer inducing.
And I am absolutely serious, not trying to be facetious. It sounds like your licence is on the line as well as your mental health. I wouldn't put up with it. Period.
How long have you been there in your job? Patient ratio of 40 is normal in a nursing home which apparently you are working? Try to have a routine and soon you will be able to find easier way. Set your foot down when you know you are right regarding time of medications. Or try looking for other job elsewhere, but dont quit till you find a new job. Goodluck.
Yes, the OP would do well to make the post a bit more friendly on the eyes, but you would do well to be a little more friendly, period. I think there have been more than enough "hall monitors" here lately to do without the added cattiness. If the manner of post bothers you (granted, it is hard to read), at least add something of value related to the thread so that your post isn't just taking up space and please do it without the negativity.
WOA, back up friend, while I know nothing about hall monitors and the like you are way off. I posted the first response, where the OP with friendly advice to make paragraphs to space her thoughts that could be more easily read, because I cared enough to try to read it, but in the middle of a night shift just couldn't with the pink, small font and lack of spacing. read it !!!!!!. The OP was clearly upset and I wanted to suggest a quick change before the time ran out, so that WE could more easily read the post.... I said "please".. not you idiot you... so do not dare try to make my post something that it is not... HOW DARE YOU... while the written word is iffy... I meant to be helpful and could not read the whole post in a sitting and was trying to suggest help for others to read more easily to be willing and able to help.
DON'T YOU DARE jump down my throat, as my intentions were to help and you misunderstood my post, my lack of sleep and the middle of the night that I couldn't read that mess and still wanted to provide help.
Geeze perhaps, I am not the "need for hall monitors".. perhaps it is you.
Aside from that I only tried to get the OP to change it in to a more friendly more readable form... crap, my peers are simply off the chain. No offense to the OP meant... It was a well meaning suggestion.. crying out loud.
OP I"ll try again to read, I"m sorry but it was too difficult and I do try to help, but your post was tough to read, sorry, please, try to paragraph when you have a new thought, I did not mean any offence.
Just a few tid bits...I been there x 10 yrs & its not always been this way. As for the pass taking 5 hours is it due to interruptions, partially. The aides from the rehab unit are constantly coming to me to tell me that that hall wants their meds..well duh! I know that. The aides wont give me time to finish what Im doing to get down there.And then there are the families down there wanting to know all kinds of things that really, they should have asked in the day time when that hall had its own private one on one nurse, unlike myself. Then I have to dig and hunt for what they want. Ive told the aides over & over not to come to me 100xs for the same thing & that Ill be down there asap. They either dont listen, or they ignore the advice. Sooo, by the 10th time they come bother me about "when are you gonna be down there?"...I snap on them.
As for the remainder of what makes the pass so long is that day shift keeps putting new orders on to start at hs and/or changing older ones to be given at hs, stupid stuff like vitamins etc. Things that SHOULD be given on their shift. The minute we write clarification orders to change the times on say, oscal or vitamin c's, colaces etc, one specific nurse comes in and rewrites it all to say "give at hs"...for spite I do believe. Shes always been that way though.
I have asked some of the other night nurses if they would go with me to the DON or to the administrator, so far only 1 agreed to do it, I need at least half of them...there are 6 of us total.
I could never work day time, I hate days because there are too many people around.
By the end of the night I feel like Ive been on a treadmill turned on high that I cant keep up with & I NEVER used to be like that..only once in a while but not constantly.
We are supposed to have monthly nurses meetings, I was thinking about bringing these things up if we have one, even though it will induce arguments Im sure, it needs to come out and we all need to be put on the same page permanently. Most likely, it wont do any good, nothing usually does with the boss @ hand, only HER ideas are good. If she doesnt come up with an idea/solution its never given a 2nd thought.
Only you can decide when enough is enough. From your last post, it sounds as if you are so enmeshed that getting a job elsewhere does not even present as an option for you. Good luck with your problems.
nursel56
7,122 Posts
At the top of the page on the far left side of the yellow bar, it should say, Hi tumecaj1122. Just to the right of that, click on "my account". Then choose "user control panel" from the drop-down menu. There you should find details on how to do various things on allnurses. Good luck!