hall patients

[rnlightening01]

Hi all i was wondering does any er nurses have to deal with managers allowing patients to be in the hall to be treated and they seem to keep putting them there even though they can't be properly monitored and is also a fire code violation, does anyone have suggestions on how to approach mangement about what i feel to be dangerous and unsafe thanks for your input

[JBudd, MSN]

We built a huge new ER, half of it not open yet. At charge report 7P Sunday night had 19 admitted patients, 13 of whom going no where because the hospital was full (one ICU, 2 PCU, rest MS). Got a few MS beds but still have to keep them until the admit orders get written. Have 24 ER rooms, 13 full with hold over admits, 10 patients in the halls, and 18 in the waiting room and more pouring in the door. Short nurses because of sick calls. Never did get the WR empty that night, but did get the wait down to an hour or so. Only because at least 10 left w/o being seen.

Monday night: 14 holdovers (some the same people still), but fortunately only 9 in WR. They actually moved equipment around, and put 3 beds in the store room and saw patients in there during the day, still there until about midnight.

Hall beds are a fact of life these days, but the storeroom?.

What's the point of building a bigger ER if you don't also build enough rooms INSIDE the hospital to take care of the admissions!

[nursemoons14]

Wow and I thought we had it bad in our emerg. Our management does not allow beds in our "chairs " area. we rarely have beds in hallways and if we do they are taken care of by the triage nurse. We have a section that strictly has 10 beds for admitted pts but at some points we have all our 35 beds as admits or close to it and have nowhere to put anyone.