Frusturated with situation...does any nurses out there have same issues?

Oh my heavens it is NOT like that everywhere. It sounds like you and your husband are in a difficult situation and set up to fail. I live in Canada but when I worked with adults we had 4-5 max on day shift. I'm now in peds oncology and we have 2-3 max on day shift.

I feel terrible you gave to deal with that

Wow! Here I think I have or we have it worse with 5 pts as the norm. We could have more usually do but not all at the same time. Usually discharge one admit one or discharge two admit one vise se versa. Your work condition is not safety. It appears like a time bomb ready for an opportunity to explode.

Sounds like you are in an unsafe situation, not only for yourself, but also for your patients. This is not the norm, and no amount of pay would be worth it to me.

Of course it's not, it's demonstrably unsafe, and you should be reporting this situation to the state stat. Your hospital may show some stats that say there are enough RNs/patient but I'd bet that counts the ones in the office and supervising four floors at a time, so is of no help at the bedside level.

Because I'm a known trouble-maker I would also write an anonymous letter to the local newspapers' tip-lines inviting an investigative report. Nothing like having some reporters come sniffing around to wake up the HR department.

Thanks for all your input! We are told by administration 7patients per nurse is the acceptable ratio per nursing board but i just dont think that is correct. So what is the norm for others?

Also would a union organization help us? Our hosp is run by company called HMA health managment association or something similar.

Look for jobs elsewhere!

Hmm - I don't think that any BON is going to issue a ruling on staff ratios - because that is outside the only deal in issues related to individual practice and this is an administrative/operational issue.

The employing hospital is not going to do anything - why should they? It is in their best (financial) interest to spend as little as possible & as long as nurses are able to take care of the patients with these ratios, they aren't going to spend any more money. Instead, I would bet that the guys/gals in the corner offices are congratulating themselves on the dramatic "improvements" in the labor budget.

Change is only going to happen when something significant occurs to get the CEO's attention. Like public exposure of the situation (newspaper, TV), a regulatory demand for correction, etc. In my experience, they can even rugs-weep serious clinical incidents - discounting the systemic problems and throwing clinicians under the bus.

Now you know why the hospital is being staffed with travelers and newbies. I am certainly not knocking travel nursing ... but if a hospital is hiring lots of travelers ... by definition, something is off of the baseline of being able to hire and fill positions appropriately.

take the breaks. The CNO can cover! Really, as long as you guys accept this, the longer it will go on.

It should be max 1:6 on Med surf.....get out if there!