floating to other floors

Published Sep 29, 2003

1 Post

I have been a Pediatric Nurse for 8months and before that I worked OB. After 6months on the floor, I am now expected to float to Tele, Ortho, Diab. fl, Med Surg and Oncology...Something is wrong with this picture. I am a Pediatric/OB nurse. I know near to nothing of the care of these pts.

Just last week one of our nurses floated and was assigned a dying pt...who died on her shift. Or we get floated to floors we have never been and get assigned 7...9...etc patients. The thing is though, that is really irritating...the minute our census drops, even one under, we get floated...but let us be sinking and the House Supervisor MAKES us take adult admits and we get no help what so ever and can bearly care for the patients we are already assigned...And God forbid if we have a real sick kid on the floor...it's like no one cares about us...its just numbers and bodies.

I have been more vocal w/ my fellow nurses. Trying to get them to see this is not right...that we need written defined policies to floating. I think we should become a closed unit, hek, we never are staffed right anyways, we might as well be taking our own call and hire a few on call people and do our thing. I think our manager is dragging her heels about closing us because she also manages the PINS unit and want us to be readily available if they are short.

This is such a frustrating subject for me. This would be the main thing that would drive me out...floating.

Thanks for letting me vent... :(