Do you have Nurse Aides?

[sister--*]

I work in a hospital where all aspects of pt. care and paperwork belong to the assigned nurse.....if she's an R.N. There is no one to pass meal trays, to help with potty trips, to assist with baths and hygiene, to help with transfers, to assist with ambulation, or to answer call lights.

In addition to our own Nursing responsiblities and admissions, there are the L.P.N.'s admission assessments and IV's to take on.

This makes for some pretty physically brutal and long days working a busy med-surg floor.

Does your hospital utilize Nurse Aides?

[bethin]

You work on a med surg floor with no aides???? I do not envy you at all. I'm an aide on med surg and I cannot imagine if the nurses had to do baths, answer call lights, pass trays, etc. Especially since meals come at 8, 12, and 5 and that's when alot of people are getting meds. While I'm passing trays nurses are getting accuchecks and meds, charting, answering dr's calls, etc. Also, vitals are due at 8, 12, and 4. Aides get vitals at 4 and accuchecks at 8 but still that leaves alot of work for nurses.

How do you do it? I have never heard of a med surg floor without aides.

[futurecnm]

i just finished up clinicals at a med-surg floor. There were always at least 2 aides for the floor, and the split up the patient load. Nurses never did vitals, or cares, bathroom/hygiene, or food trays etc. The aides did all vital signs, cares, ambulation, etc. The food trays were actually brought in by the food service. But help with eating is done by the aides. The nurses would never have time to do all of the things the aides did. I can't imagine!

[miko014]

How many pts do you take at a time? That sounds really unsafe! You need the second set of eyes and hands to help! We have 3 techs for 30 pts - some places do a 1:1 nurse:tech thing, but we do RN = 5 pts, tech = 10-12. And sometimes that's not even enough!!!

[beckabeckahi]

I work on med surg and we have one aide for thirty beds. Alot of days no aid at all. Boy do I wish for more aides. It's great when we're all running around like crazy and there is no one around to help you position a patient. On days when I have five total cares and its wash, change, meds x5 and then I just go back to the first one without taking a breath.

[DizzyLizard]

The hospital in our town is hoping to switch to what they are calling "primary care" On some floors the nurse has 4 patients and is responsible for ALL patient care (not easy somedays) Other floors have CNAs or techs so the nurse ratio is 1:6 or 8 and the CNA ratio can be anywhere from 1:10-15. Who knows what'll happen!

[cardiacRN2006, ADN, RN]

For the most part, we don't have aids. We only have 12 beds, and when were are less than half full, they float our aide. But they can only do FS and temps. Otherwise, we don't have any.

But thank God we have a unit clerk!

[chenoaspirit, ASN, RN]

We have aides, but our patient load can get VERY high. Ive had up to 13 patients. Honestly, if I could have only 4-5 patients, I would prefer to not have an aide.

[mytoon38]

Several years ago the hospital I was working at laid-off all the C.N.A.'s and went to primary Nsg. Supposedly, we were going to only have 3-4 patients, but that never happened. We continued to get 8 or more patients! So basically we lost all our wonderful support staff and our patient load stayed the same! :angryfire That is exactly the reason I decided to transfer out of the Med-Surg unit! Many other Nurses left the hospital totally! I think getting rid of the aides is one of the dumbest thing a hospital can do!:angryfire

[jo272wv]

I work on med surg where 2 to 3 aides are working days and afternoons, it was not until recently that the matrix was re evaluated and changed to let us have a pca (aid) after 11pm at 21 pts, of course by this time we are allowed four nurses also. let me tell you, I have the utmost respect for pca's, they are the back bone of pt satisfaction, as well as a nursing stress reliever. Make sure if you have aids, you thank them often for they are a gift.

[janony]

The medical floor i just finished clinicals on does primary nursing - no aides, no LPNs. Each RN gets (usually) 4 patients all to themselves... well, there are usually some of us nursing students around!

The RNs I've talked to really like the format. Less stressful than having 8-10 patients to do meds etc on, and enough RNs around that there is always help for baths, etc. Seems to work well for them - I would LOVE to work there when I graduate!