Lack of staffing on midnights

NightOwl · Feb 14, 2000

This note is in response to a few of the posts above. ERBN GIRL: Good luck in your new job, soumds like it will be better for you. As far as our staffing we do take 7 patients but we are a split unit, we are tele only the cardiac and vascular sx go to our sister unit. So our people, for the most part, are of the medical variety. Occasionally we will pick up a post op from the unit that also has some cardiac issues but not often. I will usually try to take those pts myself because I do like med/surg patients. (tubes etc)

CINDY LOU: Been there done that. Like i said I like M/S nursing but it can burn one out quick, so I left for tele. I still will float to M/S when they need help to keep my hands in it, but im no longer burnt to the bone. GOOD LUCK

ecb · Feb 14, 2000

I work Night Shift SUpervisor in a Nursing home, My facility tells people that the night ratios are 2 LPNs 1 RN and 5-6 CNAs to care for a potential of 124 patients, 61% are incontinent of both Bowel and Bladder, and 12 are more than 250 Lbs, and need to be turned.

Reality is we have 4 CNAs most nights and can COUNT ON having 3 CNAs at LEAST 2 nights a week, one of which is a weekend night. I have 2 CNAs who have walked out in the middle of the shift, not once but TWICE, with No disciplinary reprocussions because they offered to come back to work. I had written them up but was informed I was being to hard on them. I was told a couple weeks ago we are not allowed to sleep on our dinner breaks, and then this morning I was told that my shift will now be REQUIRED to get up 12 residents before 7am every day, and if we are short CNAs then the charge nurses will have to get some of them up. This is not so hard for me, I am on the Medicare wing and my assignement is lighter than the other two nurses I work with (did I forget to tell you the supervisor works a wing and covers the house, BOTH) but the LPN who takes the long end of my floor has more than a couple treatments, and there is only 1 LPN downstairs with 59 beds. They expect all of us to get people up, after 5:30am (as per state regulations that it is abuse to force them to get up more early than that) at the same time as morning lotions and Tx and accuchecks and insulins, not to mention the I&Os, last minute charting, and the ever present resperatory Tx needed as soon as people with COPD wake up.

I just worked 3 nights straight, and I will work 4 more in a row next week, and they just called to tell me I might be REQUIRED to go in because the Agency lady called out (and I am managment, which means NO OVERTIME, NO COMP TIME, and mandatory on call)

I hate to leave a job so soon into it, but this is NOT what I signed on for, and as other people have said, it is the Patients who are loosing out along with My staff.

I will keep trying, but I can only handle so much abuse to my body. I also am nursing the yougest of my 3 children, and they no longer want to hear my kids come first. I no longer go in early, or stay more than 20 min late

------------------

*** May we all have the serenity to accept what we cannot change, and the determination to change what we cannot accept. ***

[This message has been edited by ecb (edited February 14, 2000).]

NightOwl · Feb 16, 2000

You are not going to save the day. You have already approached them about THEIR inadequecies and they have responded by giving you more work. Well, hand them your walking papers. We are entering a nursing crunch and you can get employment just about anywhere, especially if you like nights, as I do.

MaxNurse · Feb 16, 2000

Short staffs seem to be a universal problem. I'm located on the Eastern Coast of the US and everywhere I've worked has had the same problem of being short staffed. Seems even if the schedule shows a full staff, some one always calls in!

I too work the midnight shift and the key staffing is one LPN and one RN...that is extremely short staffing in my opinion. The thing is no one seems to care. We've complained and voiced our concerns and it seems to fall on deaf ears. Instead of getting more staff we get more paper work put on our shift. The DON has even put some of her work on us, such as the prep for audits. We barely have the time to do what we were initially doing and administration keeps putting more and more work duties on us. I think most administrators sit in thier offices, during the day, and assume the night shift has nothing to do. Everyone knows patients sleep through the night and there is never an emergency to arise... Yeah Right!! But that seems to be what they think anyway. I don't know the answer to the problem. As long as we keep pushing ourselves and doing our jobs short staffed, there will not be any help in sight, on the other hand, if we don't get the work done we will be reprimended, written up or even terminated. What's a nurse to do?????

------------------

~~Dee~~