I'm exhausted...it's ridiculous (and unsafe)

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi !! Just got home after the most ridiculous assignment of my (33 year) career.

As an agency nurse, I accepted an assignment at at local nursing home (night shift).

Bottom line --- 58 patients (that's right 58 !!) on my floor. Only RN in the facility. LVNs worked other floors. No shift supervisor.

Tube feedings, 27 chemsticks, 15 scheduled insulin dosages & (perhaps) 30 scheduled meds.

THANK GOD, no "incidents". All alive and in their beds/wheelchairs by shift's end.

Had benefit of three CNA's, but they are restricted to direct patient care issues. No glucometer, no med techs, NADA.

Perhaps it's time to go back to ICU/ER/PACU (25 years) with my pitiful 1-2 patients and essentially sit on my BUTT !!

I'm BUSHED !! Don't ever talk to me about "difficult workloads". BEEN THERE. Give it a try all of you who feel overworked.

[email protected]

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, ED, Nurse Instructor,.

Sorry to hear about your night at work. You maintain safety of the patients. I hope you can get you some rest so you can enjoy Thanksgiving. I told myself I could not work LTC/SNF because I will feel I would not to be able to provide good care to the residents. You are one of the good ones and you will be blessed.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

OK, I have a question. Well, actually I have many questions, but let's start with this one.

If you have diabetic patients requiring insulin, for crying out loud, how are you supposed to competently care for them without a glucometer? I mean, what if one of them becomes altered and you call the doc and he says "What's the patient's blood sugar?" Your answer? "Gee, I don't know. We don't have a glucometer. Let me go smell their breath and see if it smells like acetone."

That is absolutely pitiful, for you and the patients. It's amazing facilities expect people to work like this.

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No wonder that position is vacant!

Hope you have a good rest and Happy Thanksgiving! :teapot:

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Specializes in chemical dependency detox/psych.
OK, I have a question. Well, actually I have many questions, but let's start with this one.

If you have diabetic patients requiring insulin, for crying out loud, how are you supposed to competently care for them without a glucometer? I mean, what if one of them becomes altered and you call the doc and he says "What's the patient's blood sugar?" Your answer? "Gee, I don't know. We don't have a glucometer. Let me go smell their breath and see if it smells like acetone."

That is absolutely pitiful, for you and the patients. It's amazing facilities expect people to work like this.

Correct me if I'm wrong, OP, but I think she was saying that the CNAs couldn't do the glucometer. She does mention that she did multiple chemsticks further up in the post.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Correct me if I'm wrong, OP, but I think she was saying that the CNAs couldn't do the glucometer. She does mention that she did multiple chemsticks further up in the post.

I guess I misread that then. It looked to me the way she wrote it that she didn't have a glucometer. I've never heard a glucometer check called a "chemstick." Thanks for the clarification.

It still sounds like a bad situation for the OP. I wouldn't want to work there.

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Specializes in chemical dependency detox/psych.

I think I only recognized it because my hospital system still called a glucometer a chemstick until recently.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Sounds like my workload on a recent noc shift at the NH where I worked before I found my new job......64 residents, 18 of them skilled, 4 CNAs but no med aide, about 40 0600 meds, PRNs all night long, etc. After that I swore I'd never do that again; I worked too doggoned hard for my license to risk it in such a manner for a facility that chews nurses up and spits 'em out like it's nothing to them. Which I guess it is, as they keep doing it and nurses are leaving there in droves.

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Specializes in Primary Care Nursing.
I think I only recognized it because my hospital system still called a glucometer a chemstick until recently.

Y'all have me confused. Isn't a chemstick the urine dip test for glucose? As opposed to finger stick?

I've never heard a glucometer called a chemstick either.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Y'all have me confused. Isn't a chemstick the urine dip test for glucose? As opposed to finger stick?

I've never heard a glucometer called a chemstick either.

That's what I thought a chemstick was as well. That's why I was confused.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Acute Rehab.
That's what I thought a chemstick was as well. That's why I was confused.

I am thinking it's the old fashioned term, because that's what they used before they had glucometers.

It's like where I work, several of the long time nurses calling a saline lock, a hep lock, from when they used heparin flushes for peripheral IV's.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I am thinking it's the old fashioned term, because that's what they used before they had glucometers.

It's like where I work, several of the long time nurses calling a saline lock, a hep lock, from when they used heparin flushes for peripheral IV's.

LOL. I call them "hep locks."

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