Healthcare Facilities running out of medications + supplies

Nurses Safety

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We ran out of Fentanyl drips in the entire hospital a couple of days ago. With 24 patients in my unit alone on Fentanyl drips, mostly for vent sedation, I heard more vent alarms going off at once than I ever have because all of the patients were waking up simultaneously and feeling very uncomfortable. It was ridiculous. I now have to pose this question to the crowd...

What is the dumbest thing your unit has ever run out of? Did you cry, laugh hysterically, or both?

@Nibbles I wouldn't call that running out but rather, serious neglect and the administration needs need to be fired from the top down. Is there no budget or what?

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NS, isolation gowns, droplet masks, hot packs, cups, spoons, and my personal favorite, med cups.

They brought substitute med cups to the nursing station. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be condiment cups from the kitchen - you know, the little paper cup you get ketchup or mustard in? Gotta love ingenuity, but I'd love accurate Central Processing even better.

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The worst was when there were NO isolation gowns in the entire hospital.

Of course, we're still expected to care for the patients. Honestly, I think this may be a violation of a federal safety/OSHA law - failure to provide employees with proper PPE.

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Leg straps for the circumcision tray. We used burp clothes to secure the legs.

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The worst was when there were NO isolation gowns in the entire hospital.

Of course, we're still expected to care for the patients. Honestly, I think this may be a violation of a federal safety/OSHA law - failure to provide employees with proper PPE.

They asked us to "conserve" them. How one conserves gowns I haven't a clue ... allow one trip into the patient's room each hour, and just throw any requested items to the pt from the door way?

We took pictures of us conserving gowns - three nurses fit into one but it's a close call!

We also took to saving droplet masks by just wearing it through the whole shift.

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The craziest for me was IV Lasix. The doctors were irritated because they had to give everyone Bumex. lol

There was also the time the hospital had a pipe burst on the floor above ours and gallons upon gallons of water flooded our floor including our clean utility room. We had nothing!

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No paper towels or thermometer probe covers in the whole facility.

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Specializes in Medical ICU and Unique Pathogens.

Mitts and Restraints :no:

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Specializes in ICU.

IV tubing, Propofol..... At one point before we ran completely out they brought us some of the little 10 cc bottles from surgery..... Ummmm thanks?? We had to try to get everyone swapped to Versed. And yes linens! All. The. Time.

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Specializes in OR/PACU/med surg/LTC.

The only I've run into is running out of diapers. We would only have one size available and everyone had to fit into them.

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Specializes in Education, Administration, Magnet.

We currently don't have 3L CBI bags. There is an outage nationwide. We have to figure out around that and do CBI with 1L bags. It's a pain.

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Specializes in military nursing.

Urinals. We had to give men water pitchers to pee in instead, talk about embarrassing! Plus you don't want to mix up which one you drink out of. :S

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