I have been working for 2 years on a busy neuro floor. And lately I’ve been feeling really fed up with the techs working during night. First of all, our hospital requires each tele unit to be staffed with 3 techs at night. My unit, on the other hand, has been running on 2 techs at night for forever now because my manager doesn’t think that nightshift is busy enough and she also doesn’t want to spend her budget. We get a lot of total care, confused, violent, jumper patients. A lot of times we are short on nurses too. So we each have to take on an extra patient. And our night techs are known among the nurses to be very lazy and spoiled. For example, a lot of times when I ask the techs to help me cleaning up or repositioning a patient, they would say they’re eating. They get one 30 minute break like everyone else but they take a break to eat and then another 45 minute break later on. While we nurses are running around nonstop with little help. They never prep the room or come to help when there’s an admission from the ED. There’s this one tech who always argues when we ask her to put in an IV or help us reposition the patient. She would say something like “you just reposition them, let them sleep,” or “you can do it yourself.” She expects us to turn patients ourselves and I politely told her that I need help and I’m not going to risk hurting my back. They seldom answer patients’ call bells. They’d sit at a corner on their phone even though they see the call bell lighting up. They NEVER EVER do Foley care even though they’re assigned to do it. There are many more ridiculous things that they do. My manager and charge nurses don’t want to confront them because they’ve been working for a very long time and they’re really vocal. One tech has been at the hospital for 20+ years. One always gets heated up and threatens to quit. All nurses in my unit know about their reputation. One nurse told her preceptees to expect to turn and clean patients themselves when they come onto night. Instead of discipline the techs, my manager shifts the responsibilities onto nurses. We’re expected to do some of the tasks that the techs usually do because they can’t complete them on time. I understand that it is hard to take care of 12 patients and juggling tasks at once but it feels like we don’t receive as much support compared to the amount of work that we have. And that overtime really makes me feel extremely burnt out.
I tried to phrase my requests in the nicest way like this is done for the patient and the patient wants this. There are many times I have to give them a big smile and puppy eyes for them to help out. But it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to want to bend backward anymore. What I ask them to do is not even for me. It’s for the patients.
When I got floated to other units, I realized how much their techs actually do. And it really makes me hate working in my unit. Any advices on how to solve this problem? Or how to delegate better?
Yes, CNAs and MAs have a wide scope of practice in my state. They can pretty much be trained to do anything (except administer IV meds). I believe this is state dependent. Phone triage is not within the MAs scope, but they do it all the time.
I feel the same way on my unit. Everything you said is exactly what goes on where I work. I've seen a nurse complaining about it and nothing was done about it . There was a lot of retaliation afterwards and this really good nurse ended up transferring and she's so much happier now so she says . For the most part, the nurses I work are pretty good and helpful . Although, nothing gets done about the lazy N.A. etc I like my managers . I've been on units where the NAs are great but horrible managers and I prefer having a good, laid back manager . Had to pick my battles I guess . Sadly it's the patients who suffer in the end . When I feel burned out I just take a mental day off . But it sure feels good when the lazy N.A. is off work . Funny thing is they always put that lazy N.A. with nurses who work hard . If I could go back in time, I would never be a nurse again because of the politics .
Specializes in M/S, Pulmonary, Travel, Homecare, Psych..
I hate to come off as harsh but, unfortunately you're asking the wrong question thus, will find no relief. As with most things, while we often believe "If only this one person would get with the program....." all our problems would disappear, the truth is the problem lies with ourselves.
This is not an issue of delegation for, no matter how politely and nicely you delegate to these aids, the problem will continue. The fault does not rest with you or the way you delegate.
But there is more. The problem does not rest with them, the aid, either. Lets be honest here, every person on every level of the chain is going to get away with whatever they can get away with. That's just how it is. The aids you're dealing with are no exception.
The problem is actually the leadership on your unit. You said the manager and people who could do something about it have washed their hands of it all and willfully overlook it all.
So, as I see it, you have two options. Follow the ever loved "Chain of Command" and report the issue to whoever they answer to. At least then, the message that such indifference is not acceptable will get across (hopefully). Your other option is, should you decide going above their heads is not going to be beneficial (it often is not, and perhaps causes more problems than it solves), is to move on.
You said so yourself that when you get floated, it's better for you. Maybe putting in for a transfer is your best option. Maybe moving on to an entirely different facility is the best option. I don't know.
But I can tell you, allowing yourself to believe you have any power over these aids or the situation, is not healthy for you. Often with impossible situations like yours, voting with your feet is the only viable option.
Specializes in M/S, Pulmonary, Travel, Homecare, Psych..
Winter_blue_bird said:
I feel the same way on my unit. Everything you said is exactly what goes on where I work. I've seen a nurse complaining about it and nothing was done about it . There was a lot of retaliation afterwards and this really good nurse ended up transferring and she's so much happier now so she says . For the most part, the nurses I work are pretty good and helpful . Although, nothing gets done about the lazy N.A. etc I like my managers . I've been on units where the NAs are great but horrible managers and I prefer having a good, laid back manager . Had to pick my battles I guess . Sadly it's the patients who suffer in the end . When I feel burned out I just take a mental day off . But it sure feels good when the lazy N.A. is off work . Funny thing is they always put that lazy N.A. with nurses who work hard . If I could go back in time, I would never be a nurse again because of the politics .
Let me flip it just a little. I've worked in PACUs where we had lazy RNs!! I've never had techs in a PACU. Normally we just take turns taking the pts as they come out. It isn't always even as you may end up with back to back major cases while someone else gets minor (easy) cases all shift .
Where the lazy comes in is some nurses would do unnecessarily long recoveries on the basic cases that were awake and totally stable on arrival, others would discharge there pt, sit chatting and when they were next up to take a pt go on break as soon as a OR called they were on their way.
The interesting (to me anyway) part was how reluctant our unit managers were to actually address this, even when it was so obvious the CRNAs and Dr's were asking why do only A, B & C ever take patients?
It seems to me lazy is a human trait and not tied to any one job role. In the places (yes more than one place I work) I saw it happen. I kept my eyes open, applied for and happily took other jobs when they came along. I had more than one manager beg me not to leave "it will take 2 people to replace you".
Funny, that's a huge part of why I'm leaving. Bye!
HiddenAngels
1,078 Posts
Just, Wow!