Do night shift nurses try there best

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Specializes in paediatric and trauma.

do you think night nurses try their best to maintain a happy and clean ward please post here what you think and why

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do you think night nurses try their best to maintain a happy and clean ward please post here what you think and why

I think that everyone should and most often *does* do their best and I would LIKE to see nurses stop blaming other shifts for being overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. EVERY shift is going to have a heavy workload- and sometimes things aren't going to get done. That's nursing, folks... I'd like to see a team effort in nursing, not this childish, petty "let's rag on the other shift" crap that I see so often portrayed. MHO.

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Specializes in paediatric and trauma.
I think that everyone should and most often *does* do their best and I would LIKE to see nurses stop blaming other shifts for being overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. EVERY shift is going to have a heavy workload- and sometimes things aren't going to get done. That's nursing, folks... I'd like to see a team effort in nursing, not this childish, petty "let's rag on the other shift" crap that I see so often portrayed. MHO.

I think both shifts work hard I wasnt meaning that day shift are crap sorry if it sounded like that I was just seeing what people thought night shift didn't work and what people thought they didn't iv'e worked both shifts and see both sides of the argument

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I think nowadays with the nursing shortage and sicker patients, ALL nurses work!!!

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Hate to disagree with the majority. I currently work 12 hour days. What I have observed when I have picked up a night, (and I have worked all shifts), on my unit the night shift gets report, settles in about 8:30 eating the buffet they have brought in, they have tea at midnight, go on the computer for several hours and if I happen to be the one up actually taking care of my patients I think they deem me incompetent. Coming on shift at 7am, I have found rooms a mess, just this past Friday three half filled cups of water at one bedside, I guess it would take too much to dump them in between computer games. When I asked ahead of time if one of them could get my pre-op freshened up before her 7am OR call, the night shift nurse told me she "forgot." I feel I work with a lot of "L-A-B's" my term meaning lazy ass *******. Sorry, I just get disheartened when the patient or family tells me how poorly they were treated by the night staff. God forbid someone needs some sympathy when their loved one is dying and it is the night shifts "down time."

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Specializes in EMS, ER, GI, PCU/Telemetry.

no, i usually sit in the breakroom all night with my feet on the table and eat bon bons while throwing the wrappers on the floor for the day shift to clean up. :)

i have worked both day shift and night shift as a nurse. i honestly think that they are both equally busy and hard, but that nights is at a disadvantage... we always are totally strapped for staff.

when i worked days, i was amazed at how many people ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner! and i felt like I was in the way-- besides families, there are staff everywhere--nurse managers, doctors, residents, techs, respiratory, PT, OT, ST, dietary, housekeeping, unit secretaries....

at night on my floor, we have a handful of nurses, like two techs if we're lucky, and grouchy tired interns to wake up at 3am.

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I fully realize each shift has its challenges I have worked at the same hospital for 25 years. When I was on nights we had 3 nurses, no tech, no secretary. Now they have four nurses and a tech. We have 5 nurses, a tech and a secretary. Every shift can have their moments of being straight out when things don't get done. But when it is consistent behavior from a particular group, then it is a problem. I just cannot understand nurses that can put socializing before patient care. I am not talking about all night nurses, just the ones I have had the displeasure in following.

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.
Hate to disagree with the majority. I currently work 12 hour days. What I have observed when I have picked up a night, (and I have worked all shifts), on my unit the night shift gets report, settles in about 8:30 eating the buffet they have brought in, they have tea at midnight, go on the computer for several hours and if I happen to be the one up actually taking care of my patients I think they deem me incompetent. Coming on shift at 7am, I have found rooms a mess, just this past Friday three half filled cups of water at one bedside, I guess it would take too much to dump them in between computer games. When I asked ahead of time if one of them could get my pre-op freshened up before her 7am OR call, the night shift nurse told me she "forgot." I feel I work with a lot of "L-A-B's" my term meaning lazy a** b******. Sorry, I just get disheartened when the patient or family tells me how poorly they were treated by the night staff. God forbid someone needs some sympathy when their loved one is dying and it is the night shifts "down time."

Wow, sounds like a peachy place to work.

Thankfully, not on my unit. We (nights), in between pt. care, clean up, stock, wipe down equipment, isolettes, warmers, move beds around.

Since we don't have aides or housekeeping, we do everything that gets done plus more on days without the ancillary staff. The kids are bathed, bedsides completely stocked, etc.

We have no food anywhere the pt care area. Yes, we have buffets but you eat at your designated lunch hour in the breakroom.

I love my co-workers. We work as a 24-hr team and thankfully never have days vs. nights wars. Day shift actually appreciates us and love starting the day with a "fresh" working environment. Dayshift tries to get most of the teaching and gather a list of what is pending, what's all been completed up to date since most parents only come in briefly at night to say goodnight. Both shifts have a slightly different set of extra things we try to accomplish to complement each other (shift). At the end, it makes our jobs easier, more pleasant and our pts. benefit!

When I worked med-surg it was the same deal minus the severe understaffing at nights, larger pt. load and unsatisfiable dayshift. I'm so grateful for where I work now :heartbeat

P.S. in the rare event that we are not super busy and have nothing else to do in between cares, there are always chart reviews, or a drawer somewhere that needs to be reorganized.

We keep each other busy that way. I can honestly say that I have yet to experience gossip or sillyness that goes on in many other places because we don't have time to engage in that. Sure, we talk about life, the news, etc. but everyone is so respectful and mindful of their co-workers.

A few months ago, I could have never dreamed a place like this existed in the nursing world. I was wrong.

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Hate to disagree with the majority. I currently work 12 hour days. What I have observed when I have picked up a night, (and I have worked all shifts), on my unit the night shift gets report, settles in about 8:30 eating the buffet they have brought in, they have tea at midnight, go on the computer for several hours and if I happen to be the one up actually taking care of my patients I think they deem me incompetent. Coming on shift at 7am, I have found rooms a mess, just this past Friday three half filled cups of water at one bedside, I guess it would take too much to dump them in between computer games. When I asked ahead of time if one of them could get my pre-op freshened up before her 7am OR call, the night shift nurse told me she "forgot." I feel I work with a lot of "L-A-B's" my term meaning lazy ass *******. Sorry, I just get disheartened when the patient or family tells me how poorly they were treated by the night staff. God forbid someone needs some sympathy when their loved one is dying and it is the night shifts "down time."

.... Working in a bad environment doesn't necessarily mean that that environment is the "norm"... I've been a patient on floors where God forbid if you interrupted a (day shift) nurses precious charting time because you were bleeding through a dressing and getting the sheets messy or needed some assistance getting up (after surgery). There will always be awful work environments- but that doesn't mean that it's a repeated trend that one can generalize of "night shift/day shift"- it's an issue to that particular environment's (night/day) shift.

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When my stable but sick patient who I have been told has been ringing all day because of pain, falls asleep at 2130 and is comfortable...you bet I'm not going to go in there at 0300h to clean the empty glasses off of his table and scrub the floors. Patient care includes sleep, and far be it for me to disturb him so his table is clean when the day shift comes on.

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Jessy RN, wished I worked there. It sounds ideal. Our unit has gone through a lot of changes and several managers and I think that can contribute greatly to the problem. I wish I could bring about change for the better but I work with some hard core nurses. Not to pat myself on the back but when I did nights I washed at least one of my ventilated patients, left the rooms neat and orderly, hung an extra IV bag when I knew the one hanging was going empty and would need changing at change of shift, picked up the work area, emptied over-flowing trash even though "it is not my job."

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Jessy RN, wished I worked there. It sounds ideal. Our unit has gone through a lot of changes and several managers and I think that can contribute greatly to the problem. I wish I could bring about change for the better but I work with some hard core nurses. Not to pat myself on the back but when I did nights I washed at least one of my ventilated patients, left the rooms neat and orderly, hung an extra IV bag when I knew the one hanging was going empty and would need changing at change of shift, picked up the work area, emptied over-flowing trash even though "it is not my job."

:) You sound like a great nurse.

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