Dear Hospital Administrators

[Lev]

Dear Hospital Administrators,

Hello, from one of your high or low performing hospital's staff nurses.

Who? Oh right...the nurses who keep my hospital running but I don't even see what's in front of my face, that's who.

The abused, the yelled at, the under compensated, the stressed out, and over worked nurses.

Yes, all of the above is true.

Nursing shortage?

Your outer excuse for not allowing your nurse managers to post and fill staff nurse positions which they ask for weekly.

Nurses don't bill for services. Too bad for us, because if we did, we would be treated better. We are lumped together with the dietary aids, housekeeping, and those who stock the storeroom. Easy to fire and replace at will.

Healthcare is a business, people. Hospital administrators don't care about you; they care about your money. Doctors and nurses do care about you, but they are just caught up in the system. So what do we want from you, our boss' bosses?

We want reasonable expectations from hospital management and we want someone to be on our side. We don't want another lunchbag or pen for nurses week; we want our voices to be heard. We want to feel like we own the hospital and not just work there.

Patient satisfaction is huge, but it's not because hospital administrators care about their patients. They care about the reimbursement tied to patient satisfaction. They will make the job of their nurses harder to please their customers or patients. This makes the nurses unhappy because they can't do their job as well and their satisfaction with their job lessens. Add this on to other on the job stresses and your nurse retention rate suffers. Which probably doesn't bother you that much, since nurses are replaceable, right?

If you want to improve customer satisfaction you must make sure your nurses are happy. Ask any nurse and this is what he or she will tell you. Happy nurses equal happy patients. The majority of you are in violation of labor laws which allow your hospital's nurses to get an uninterrupted break each shift. From my personal experience, which you lack, the only way this will happen is if you staff for a relief nurse on each unit on each shift who is there solely to cover other nurses when they take their well deserved breaks.

Staffing is another issue which is in your control. Hire more nurses and lower your ratios! No nurse should be taking care of seven plus acutely ill patients. It is not safe.

I'm an ER nurse. I have seen the abuse against nurses from patients. Screaming, yelling, hitting, biting, spitting, profanity, sexual comments/groping, twisting arms, throwing objects, and punching are just some of the experiences nurses go through daily. This has to stop. This should not be tolerated. There should be zero tolerance for this type of violence and assault. If this were to happen outside of the hospital, charges could be pressed. Every hospital should take this type of abuse seriously. All cases of rude, inappropriate, and dangerous behavior should be reported immediately and a police officer should be available at all times to file a report about the occurrence and see if charges can be filed. There are laws in place protecting healthcare workers. Many hospitals have police officers staffed in the emergency department and following up on such cases can be an extension of their role.

I hope you take these points into consideration and make nursing better for us.

Sincerely,

An anonymous nurse on her way to burn out and orthopedic surgery who will NOT give up on this profession.

[ProgressiveActivist, BSN, RN]

So why is "union" such a dirty word on this forum?

HCA, Tenet, Kindred and Kaiser exterminente would be on that like rats on a cheeto.

[target98765]

"So why is "union" such a dirty word on this forum?"

It isn't a dirty word, but the reluctance attached to nurses and the word union is easy to see. In a nurses world the words Union, Organize, and contract are career ending words. For a Union to come into a hospital they have to be invited by the nurses. Talking about organizing is done by a crazy, brave nurse who calls the union and starts up all this Union stuff. I have know 2 nurses whom I worked with over 20 years that tried to organize a union and they were quickly fired on trumped up circumstances. Alas, I think a Union is the way to go for nursing, we ate just shat upon all day long and basically used and it's just not good. We are not provided the tools and resources we need to "do" our jobs. This is no career, it's a crappy JOB.

[target98765]

Over the past 2 decades. Like many of the previous posts, I've seen growing layers of management. Now instead of 1 director and 1 manager for each unit. We have a CNO, a divisional director, a manager for each floor, a team leader for each floor, a charge nurse, then the lowly staff nurse. I see people with 1-2 years of experience promoted into leadership roles, not because of their experience, but because they are "Yes" people. They make poor decisions because they haven't actually done it.

The staff on the front line is viewed as the lowest of the low. The most disposable. Management can walk out on Friday afternoon, leaving the staff so low that it creates unsafe working conditions. And WHO is held accountable when there are falls, errors, or patient complaints. Yes, that bottom of the totem pole staff nurse. Cut the nursing assistants because, the staff nurse can do TOTAL care on 6-7 acutely ill patients.

Experienced staff aren't valued and promoted into leadership roles because they have actually done the work and administrators don't want nurse advocates in nursing leadership.

Experienced nurses are leaving, replaced with inexperienced new grads being managed by inexperienced nurses. These same hospitals are striving to attain magnet status.

Pouring out money hand over fist on stupid things, yet, cutting back on actually staffing to safe levels.

Magnet is a giant crock of POO.

[target98765]

A NATIONWIDE UNION is the only way to protect us, seriously, think about it.

[JohnHood, BSN]

In my area of Washington the police seem to be part of the problem. We have become the dumping ground for violent "psych", ETOH or Heroin pick ups.

[jllopez]

Yes and the managers are just as negligent.they are greedy too and talk 2 ways.

[1056chris]

Amen. Patient Satisfaction. Hand those patients a card with your name on and give their family coffee. They will fill out that card and say how wonderful we are. Sometimes, no most of the time, we are too busy to do all this. No IV team, no lab, sometimes no secretary, patients coming and going so instead of 6 you really took care of nine. Maybe those administrators can come up to the floor and get the patients a newspaper or coffee, or check blood, or do a late admission or transfer, sit with a patient who keeps climbing out of bed and isn't aloud a posey and no staff for a sitter. I would much rather have a day off with pay than a gold plated pin or a free lunch.

[Deepinthegame]

Nursing is a job ! That's it -some call it a career -ok fine. However , tell administration about your floor needs and nursing passions and see what happens. Another reason , I love new grads they come to the meetings to try and make a difference for the obvious only to be crushed to the earth . Look out for your star player - yourself ! Do it again tomorrow . Trust me administration is.

[AMatherRN]

Forget the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. Start small. Go to The New York Post, which loves this stuff. I'll guarantee that your letter will be picked up by other papers once it is published. The public needs to be made aware of how endangered they could be with all this patient satisfaction/a billion patients to a nurse crap. Publish it. You're preaching to the choir here which will do nothing.

[Njtex99]

Our hospitals are in crisis mode regarding employment because the Governor has raised taxes and cut funding on hospital's in our state.

Over 40 million dollars in 5 year's has been taxed from our hospitals. Additionally, on average 40 million dollars a year of funding is usually cut from hospitals. In addition, to medicaid and Medicare cuts from federal funding. It's ridiculous.

And your CEOs probably still receive bonuses.

[Lisa.fnp]

Writing in metaphor. Many try to fix the problems in hospitals. But it's like a water glass that fell and shattered, it's Broken. You can not fix broken. The problem is and remains "hospitals are broken. One can spend time and maybe they have a special glue and the shattered pieces can be held together to look like a glass again. But it is still broken, you will always know it's broken. You will never take pride because it is broken, nor will you drink out of it again. I went back to school became a NP. I deal with patients for the most part are compliant, happy and appreciative with the care received. For everyone unhappy with the hospital environment, do something about. Get the education so you can with your head held high walk away from it.

[Steffy44]

You got a lunch bag and pen for nurses week? This year we got some lame breakfast (go through the line in the cafeteria) that no one could attend because we were too busy working. The rest weren't about to come in off work for the same tired breakfast fare we don't get to enjoy daily. If I hear productivity one more time I'm going to throw up. I hear my floor is getting a $500 bonus for meeting productivity for the year. Most will be sucked up by taxes. Keep the $500 and give us nurses. I've only been on my floor for 2 years (my first nursing job too) and I'm about to jump ship. I'm fed up with 1/2 my ortho floor behind demented and being staffed for numbers and not acuity. Why did your patient fall...he had a bed alarm. Probably because we're understaffed and we're running to the other 5 bed alarms going off all at once.