covid unit safety

This month is my one year of being a nurse, the beginning was definitely a roller coaster ride, I’ve finally found my place, become more confident and trust my decisions. The thing is I’m miserable at my job, I’ve been trying to stick out the one year of med surg and have been applying like crazy the past week. I guess my first question is are all hospitals this short staffed? At the beginning I was told I’d only have 5 patients a night but have always had 7, a lot of time total care, because we do not have enough aides either. There’s no evaluations so I have no idea what I need to improve on, in my interview I was told there was tuition reimbursement then upon being hired told they didn’t have the budget for that.

Enter COVID-19 I’ve been working on our hospital’s designated COVID floor since March, last weekend we only had four patients the rest were ICU level, I was total care and told we didn’t have any aides. It was a complete mess, two of the patients were total care on their own and the day shift nurse had given them both sorbitol, an enema and suppository before they left. Another had a heparin drip for a PE and DVT that had been a problem during the day and I was on the phone with pharmacy constantly about it.

The unit manager called me on my way home in the morning to apologize and tell me it’s a safety issue that no one should be the only person on a unit.

When I came back that night the day shift nurse told me I was being moved to another unit, that I was a new nurse who just couldn’t handle the patient load and the charge nurse said I “***ed” to management to be moved. I never asked to be moved I just said I could have really used an aide and that it was a rough night, when the unit manager called me. I pride myself on not complaining and trying to have a positive attitude at work, so it was really disappointing that the one time I speak up, I’m immediately put down.

There’s no real question here, I guess just any advice would be appreciated.