I cannot UNDERSTAND lazy people!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

We had two incidents this weekend that blows my mind. I wasn't there either time, so this is all second hand, but still, YEESH. I work at a freestanding inpatient Hospice facility....

1) We use a company owned by our hospital organization to mix all our IV drugs. A woman was admitted with breast ca with extensive mets to bone and pathological fx to humerus and hip. A doc at the hospital put an epidural in her and had fentenyl at 5mcg/ml at 15ml per hour. The nurse called the ONCALL pharmacist at 5pm and told him of the new admit. HE REFUSED to go and mix the fentenyl:madface: :madface: :madface: Apparently, he was getting ready to go to the movies with his family and THAT was more important the the patient's comfort:nono: :madface: :nono: :madface: The nurse on duty made a few calls and another IV company agreed to mix up the bags and bring them in so she would have enough to get through the weekend. THEN this man called back and said, I have an order from Dr. G, we are going to take her off this drug and try something else. Carol told him, number one, I don't take orders from a pharmacist. Number two, this woman is getting adequate pain control from the fentenyl and I WILL not change that just to make your life easier. NUMBER THREE, did you tell doctor why you wanted to have this changed? Needless to say, our director is getting involved in this tomarrow, but OH MY GOD!!!!

2) We only have housekeeping coverage from 8-4:30. The housekeeper interrupted report this morning with a 10 minute tirate about the rooms not getting cleaned at night. We had a patient leave at 7:30 the night before and with the 14 other patients, plus one death, we didn't have time to pick up in the room :uhoh3: She said she is going to the director because, get this, ITS NOT MY JOB! YOU nurses need to be checking these rooms to see if they are clean or not. Umm, yeah, ok, so now on afternoon shift, without a unit clerk, we are suppose to be nurses, unit clerks, secretarys, and HOUSEKEEPERS.. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Please, please, please tell me. What is WRONG with these people. Or, is it possible I expect too much:uhoh21:

Specializes in SICU, PACU, Public health.

Everyone but the nursing staff has a clearly defined job description. What isn't in another's job description is automatically the nurse's job.:uhoh3:

5. When it comes to "team work," only one member of the "team" is always looked at to always pick up the ball, and that one member will always be the nurse.

Well said....Well said

I was just complaining to my husband the other night how the nurse is in the center of a sphere in the hospital. EVERYONE expects the nurse to do it all, and RIGHT AWAY also.

Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

Don't most job descriptions include terms like ''including but not limited to'' and ''other tasks as delegated by supervisor" or "other tasks as needed". Those terms are in the description of every single person that works in my agency, but some people conveniently forgot about that and HR backs them up!

This is a very touchy topic for me. I get SO MAD when I have to ask people to do things OVER and OVER again, when it is their job to do it and I shouldn't have to ask them AT ALL!

For example, I work with some fabulous techs. And then there are a few who will do the absolute least that they can get away with. And what gets me the most is blood sugars. We write out a little sheet for our techs that tells them diet, activity, etc for each pt. One of the boxes on there is for blood sugars. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to say, "JohnDoeTechMan, did you get the BS on Mr. XYZ?" Only to hear, "Oh, no. I didn't know he needed one". Well, our dinner trays come between 4:30 and 5, so if they don't do their BS's on time, half the time the pt has already eaten. And they always say, "was it on the sheet?" YES it was! Why don't you LOOK AT THE SHEET???!!??!?!!! And there is one who will take the sheet that the RN makes, get a blank one, copy it over his own way, with a few "little things that needed to be changed", then trhow away the original! NOT ACCEPTABLE IN THE LEAST!!!!!!

I've been told by a housekeeper that it wasn't her job to clean the bathrooms. This is the same lady who, when we had a pt discharge, didn't clean anything in the room, she just took the old sheets off the bed, wiped off the mattress, left the rag on the bed, tossed new sheets on, and left. Absolutely disgusting!!!

They are really on us right now about "customer service", and how it extends to other employees as well - as in, pharmacy has the right to call nurses with questions and not have to wait on hold 10 minutes. But that is their choice, our UCs will say, "she is busy right now, can she call you back when she is free?" and some of them say sure and give a name/number and some will say, "no, i'll hold" and then get mad that it took so long. Well sorry, I'm not going to stop in the middle of a sterile dressing chenge so that you can ask me a question about someone's meds. That is just going to have to wait! But anyway I asked my NM about that and I said, "well, then shouldn't it apply to us too?" And she sid, "Of course". But it doesn't. Because it's just like what DusktilDawn said, anything that is not spelled out in someone else's job description automatically becomes the responsibility of the nurse!! They should just make up all the housekeeping, tech, pharmacy, PT/OT etc job descriptions, and the last one should be the nurse one. It should simply say, "everything else."

The housekeeper interrupted report this morning with a 10 minute tirate about the rooms not getting cleaned at night. We had a patient leave at 7:30 the night before and with the 14 other patients, plus one death, we didn't have time to pick up in the room :uhoh3: She said she is going to the director because, get this, ITS NOT MY JOB! YOU nurses need to be checking these rooms to see if they are clean or not. Umm, yeah, ok, so now on afternoon shift, without a unit clerk, we are suppose to be nurses, unit clerks, secretarys, and HOUSEKEEPERS.

Boy don't ya just wish you were the Director? I'd say to the housekeeper "Thank you for pointing that out to me, now that I know, we'll no longer be in need of your employment here since we are paying you to do NOTHING!"

Our housekeepers say it's not their job to empty trash, it's the nurses' job, so I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of the housekeeper's perogative.

Our housekeepers are great. They will do things not in their job descriptions to help us out. In the ER the gurneys are cleaned by ER staff unless a terminal cleaning is needed, but if the housekeepers are in the department doing their stuff and a gurney hasn't been cleaned yet after a discharge, they'll just do it for us. In return, if there's something simple we need done and the housekeepers aren't in the department, we'll do it ourselves. I even walked into a pt's cubicle once.......the pt was a newborn and Mom wanted to breastfeed. She was having trouble getting the baby to latch. I walked in and found the housekeeper, who had nursed all her kids, giving Mom a latch lesson. I've even snagged a housekeeper to interpret for me if my tech was busy and I couldn't wait.

That's the thing - we have some fantastic housekepers as well! They work day shift and are our normal unit housekeepers. For evenings and nights, we call when we need something. Some of them are great, and others hide in empty rooms and talk on the phone or talk to each other - and never in English - I hate when they do that in front of pts! But the other night I had a pt who peed all over the floor, so I mopped it up with towels, and then there was a housekeeper (one of our good ones) up cleaning another room, and I asked if I could borrow her mop to do the rest of the floor just to make sure I got it all. She got a pad out for me and gave it to me, I mopped it up, and gave it back to her. That's what I like - I was willing to handle the mess and she was willing to stop what she was doing to help me with the mop. TEAM WORK! Why can't we all just work together????

Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.

The on-call pharmacist - FIRE HIM.

The housekeeper - FIRE HER.

Who has time for this kind of bullsh** ? Not me.

Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

I work as a Tech, and you know....I don't mind that I have to take out linen, empty trash, clean spills, etc.....what gets me is when I've done rounds at 4AM, someone goes in to d/c something, or hang iv stuff, and then dumps entire kit of stuff into trash and leaves it....and I get blamed for not "providing a clean environment."

Housekeeping likes to claim they're busy, but usually they're in there with TV going while they "clean". Then they leave them on and I have to go follow them, turn it off, double-check trash/equipment.....ARGGGHHH. Nurses do a lot, I know that. Would it be too much to just ask for a heads up so I can go behind and reempty things?

some people are so busy telling everyone how busy they are they never do anything......................

:roll love this one!!!:roll

Specializes in vascular, med surg, home health , rehab,.

Yesterday, my steth, had a hole in the tubing. Paid a lot, less than 2 years ago and I was talking to another nurse. The UC heard the cost and was shocked. So she wanted to know why we didn't just buy one of those kids ones? No malice in the comment. But it just struck me just how little anyone other than fellow nurses really, really get what we do, are responsible for, what the consequences of screwing up can be. What the difference can be in a patients survival with a decent nurse doing her/his job and only their job. Not just the public doesn't get it, admin, and every other dept in the actual places we work don't get it. I am finally learning to let go of stuff people don't do, focus on what I have to do, but still as in the appalling behavior of the pharmacist, you have to fight against it. There are nurse that don't anymore. Exhausting. I wonder why there is an increasing shortage of RN's?

Yes, I know, I know, I have been through it all. Blessings on the majority of people that do their jobs and then some. There are plenty of them.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.
I wonder why there is an increasing shortage of RN's?

Shortage of RN's? Do you mean shortage of NURSES? Because I believe the shortage applies to us lowly LPN's too.

+ Add a Comment