Hostile Environment

[wingding]

I work for an acute care psych facility. The nurses & techs are becomming more hostile to each other by snapping at each other, making rude comments, refusing to help each other. All of this is in front of patients. There is complaining to management about each other,, "this one isn't nice to me, this one doesn't do this, this one is too nice to the patients, this one doesn't have a clue, I refuse to work with so & so". I have heard nurses making statements about management pitting & siding. It seems like this place is getting more hostile by the week. I feel that patient care suffers when it is like this. Has anyone else had this kind of experience where working as a team is slowly eroded away & everyone seems to be at the others throats?

[Davey Do]

Co-Workers have the power to make or break the working environment; they can make a typical shift difficult or cause a difficult shift to be a transcending experience.

Your area of focus is spot on, wingding.

I feel that patient care suffers when it is like this.

Patient care is always our priority.

Now, there are methods and techniques to deal with these flies in the ointment, like setting boundaries, objective documentation of situations, following chain of command, behavior mod, etc. Similar situations have been previously discussed. Here's an example:

https://allnurses.com/nurse-colleague-patient/how-can-i-996123.html

If you'd like to discuss any specific on topic problem situation on this forum, I'm sure you'd get good feedback.

Otherwise, to read where others have discussed similar subjects, use the search option located at the foot of the forum page.

Good luck and the best to you, wingding!

[femaleRN]

I work on 4 psychiatric hospital units. I've noticed some little things that the staff do on the unit where they get along the most. This unit about once a month invites everyone to go out together to dinner and a movie. They post it on the unit. Also I think small things like bringing snacks to share. We have a nurse who brings a bin of chocolate and puts out a cup for donations to the "chocolate fund". Have a bulletin board where staff can post pics of there pets. Talk to your manager about some fun team building ideas. Sounds corny, but seems to be working for this unit.