How to tell administration enough is enough

Nurses General Nursing

Published

So I'm a house supervisor for a 134 bed hospital. I'm responsible for management of around 24-26 employees and all patient issues requiring extra attention as well as administrative duties. I manage all codes,training of new staff, discipline actions etc. I'm also screening, placing and obtaining all admissions. For the past year I've been expected to also take on a unit of patients. I'm exhausted and have expressed to my DON and other management that this needs to change as its not safe for my patients or me for that matter. I'm ready to either step down or quit. I don't want to leave my job as I really love what I'm doing but I feel I'm jeapordizing my license. All advice welcome.

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I don't understand what you mean by "take on a unit of patients."

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Apologies- I have a unit of four patients that I care for.

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It all sounds like too much to me. One more frank talk. Don't give an ultimatum, but make you stance clear. If you are ignored, then resign. Maybe they will change to keep you, maybe they will not. At least you can rest easier at night then, without jeopardizing your health.

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That workload is OUTRAGEOUS. You have been letting administration pile on more and more.. despite your objections.

Administration is loving the fact that you are doing the work of 3 people, imagine the size of THEIR bonuses for forcing you to do so. They will NOT decrease your workload.

You have the experience to land a MUCH better position. Buff up the resume and put yourself out there.

Resign , AFTER you have landed a much better position. Change is hard.. but it will be worth it.

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Specializes in Oncology.

You have a full patient assignment in addition to being house supervisor? Who watches your patients when you're going to codes? Don't your patients object to your pager going off nonstop?

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Specializes in Reproductive & Public Health.

So let me get this straight. You are responsible for running the hospital, AND you have a patient assignment? When I worked as a nurse, the supervisor was ALL over the place, putting out fires and coordinating between units, getting paged for everything from a broken ice machine to a pissed off family member.

One patient would be too much for you to take on, and a full assignment is just bananas. How could they expect you to manage that? I don't care if these are the most stable patients in the whole hospital and you have two CNAs assigned solely to you. I don't even understand how you would be able to fulfill your supervisory duties without constantly having to find another nurse to cover your patients.

I have seen management pull some whoppers, but this might be one of the worst.

You have the skills and experience to seek out a much, much, much better job. You deserve to be treated with respect.

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"Am I being punked?"

Seriously, are you being serious? It doesn't even sound plausible, including the loving it part.

If it's 100% as you describe, I would tell them straight up that I accepted these assignments because I was trying to impress but its not realistic to give either position adequate time and quality and that I could no longer perform both. I would like to stay in the supervisor position with the patient assignment removed.

If they say no way, then I would find another job and give notice.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

This is possibly the craziest scheme I've ever heard of in terms of nursing expectations and lord knows there are a lot of crazy expectations.

Get out of there. Get. Out. Management that would even attempt to pull this in the first place isn't going to be a group you can reason with (and after somehow making this work, kind of, for a year, I doubt they'll accept that you can't do it- even though OH MY GOD HOW HAVE YOU MADE THIS WORK FOR A YEAR EVEN KIND OF?).

Get a new job and leeeeeeave that hellhole.

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