How do I deal with this nurse?

[John4134]

I'm a nursing aide in the UK and there is one nurse in particular that is driving my crazy. We both work the night shift in a ward that is usually quite light on work during the night shift. There are two sides to the ward. The culture of the ward is that you help the other side if they need it.

From 22:00 to 23:30 and from 24:00 to 6:00 the ward is pretty much dead. In general the ward manager gets complaints about all staff at some point or another, so disputes like this that are escalated to her end up being ignored because it's just your word against theirs, and they have higher level ward management and politics stuff to worry about.

These are the things she is doing often:

1) Spends the first 40 minutes of her shift gossiping at the front desk while I get to work immediately. When she finally starts working she ends up delegating stuff to me that she would have never have needed to delegate if she started working after handover instead of chatting.

2) Tactically leaves paperwork not done until opportune times. e.g. she waited until 6:00 in the morning to do various paperwork that she could have done between 24:00 and 6am but she instead spent the entire time playing a game on her mobile phone. As soon as a difficult patient who needed 2 people to help him with toileting needed the toilet, she picked up her paperwork and delegated the task to me and the nursing aide assigned to her side, even though I was not assigned to her side, because she was ticking boxes in paperwork she tactically saved over the night which means she was technically busy at the time.

3) Whenever there is a patient that needs 2 people to help with toileting. She always positions herself in such a way so that she gets to roll the patient and I get to wipe the patient.

4) If a patient needs a bedpan and she can find a nursing aide anywhere she will walk up to the nursing aide and say "patient x needs a bedpan". This is one of the times when she pulls out some paperwork she could have done earlier on (and can very easily do later on because it is guaranteed there will be several hours of absolutely nothing to do) when she was playing a game on her mobile phone.

5) The other day she was doing the medication round and she was standing right next to a patient who needed the toilet. She left the room, walked to the other side of the ward and flagged me down saying "im doing muh medication and she needs the toilet sorry".

I spoke to the patient who told me she was not comfortable with a man toileting her. I told the nurse who was still in the room, and she responded with "I'm doing my medication what can I do?". She sighed and spent the one minute needed to wipe the patient's bottom before continuing with her medication round.

The next time that patient needed the toilet she told the patient she would be back soon and left her on the toilet. She then went to the staff bathroom and stayed in there for a whole 10 minutes. I answered the toilet buzzer several times and assured the patient that the nurse would be back soon. As soon as the nurse left the toilet she decided that it was time to do an audit of the controlled drugs and didn't return to the patient. I answered the buzzer several more times before leaving it ringing. She finally left the drugs room and said "Why don't you answer the buzzer?" I told her "You know that this patient doesn't want a man toileting her". She sighed and went to do it.

6) When the others are on break and its just me and her working opposite ends, and both of us are doing nothing, she won't answer the buzzers on her end when they ring. She will continue playing games on her phone while her buzzers ring forcing me to answer it, which means I'm going to be doing all the bedpans on both my side and her side while she gets to play on her phone. She will only physically move if I'm currently with another patient, which is not a fair share of the work.

7) If both of us have nothing to do and we are working the same ends, and a buzzer on our side rings, she won't physically move. She is more than happy to let me answer every single buzzer for the entire shift while she plays with her phone.

8) If there is a patient that needs someone watching them because they are possibly a danger to themselves, she will decide that she needs to do it instead of a nursing aide, so she tactically ends up sitting in the room watching the patient sleep while you do most of the work yourself. When the observations and other paperwork is done, she will decide to switch and leave you in there so she can go to the front desk and chat/eat/play games on the mobile phone.

9) Over the weekend we prepare the paperwork for next week's admissions. For the past month she has sat there every weekend playing with her phone while me and the other nurse on shift did all 25 of them ourselves. One time she even had the gall to tell me to get started on the next week's admissions and then she went and took a random 20 minute dinner break that never came out of her scheduled break.

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

I would have to hear the other side of the story to be able to answer that question. From what you write, it almost sounds like she's trying to "make" you do things and you're trying to "make" her do them. Have you ever attempted to discuss these issues with her?

[JBudd, MSN]

As an aide, bedpans and toileting are in your job description. Most of your complaints (really, you worry that she always stands to the side so you have to wipe?), are part of you being the aide and her being the nurse.

The major one I see, is the amount of time spent on the phone, so unless you can document date and time spent and prove to your manager that she doesn't get work done because of it, you really don't have much room to change things.

Yes, she sounds a little lazy, but we only have your side of the story. I don't approve of walking out of a room when someone asks me for something, just so I can tell someone else to do it, I toilet/bedpan/clean as needed. However, it is proven that when med passes are interupted, the error rates go way up. Many people on quiet shifts tend to bunch their paperwork to do all at the same time, and not just on quiet ones for that matter.

If a call bell goes off, and you are the aide, yeah, you can go get it. You did say she answers them if you are busy in a room.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Moved to Nursing in the UK forum

[AutumnApple]

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach that man to fish, you feed him for life."

When I did hospital nursing, I was often in a position where I had to mediate problems just as this one. I can tell you this much as fact: Even if your manager had time to deal with it, they wouldn't. It's your problem, and the nurse's.

You see, I can't help but roll my eyes when people say management doesn't want to deal with things or manage their units. They, rightfully, refuse to 'hold court' every time disagreements like this come up and the workers are left feeling neglected.

Truth is, disagreements like this are a bottomless pit. For every one you solve, ten more come up (involving the same people sometimes even). You have to force employees to learn to get along settle their own disputes. That is what you are facing, a dispute that needs settled and.............it's up to you to do it.

So what are your options? They're limited when you get right down to it.

1. Confront her. Let her know the culture of the unit is not acceptable to you. Come from a point of view of trying to understand her feelings on the matter. Reach an agreement on what you consider appropriate times to ask for your assistance, and set some boundaries on the things that have you upset. Be prepared to make some accommodations for her as well because, to put it lightly......I don't see her as the only problem in this disagreement. You are not innocent by any means.

2. Don't confront her. It's perfectly fine to decide this battle is not worth fighting. But remember, if you choose this option, you forfeit the right to continue expecting it to change. By taking this option, we agree that the problem does not warrant discussion and you can manage things as is.

Either way, you and the nurse have to get along.

I suggest having a sit down with her, but learn to fish first. Plan how to say what you feel needs said ahead of time so it can be said in a professional manner. Perhaps even role-play the meeting with someone else so you're practiced at it. And most certainly, practice active listening when it is her turn to say her part.