I'm sick to my eyeballs of incompetent agency nurses.

Nurses General Nursing

Published

:angryfire

I am sick and tired of having to work with incompetent agency nurses. Ones that have no clue what to do but take the shift anyway because it's money.

I'm sick of having to teach them stuff, I am not there to teach them, I am happy to teach our own nurses but not agency nurses. If they feel they are suitable enough for agency, then it is their responsibility to make sure they have the skills not mine.

I'm sick of having to pick up the pieces and listen to complaints from relatives about them. I have had a gutful.

I'd rather work shortstaffed that watch someone do the bear minimum or nothing yet getting paid better. It really irritates me.

I hate it.I have had a gutful. I am ready to crack up.

I think that standards to become an agency nurse need to be raised. I've recently bumped into someone who has been out of the hospital system for 7 years and has come back through agency. She ended up on our ward and couldn't cope. Tonights idiot didn't know he had to empty the catheter bag of the bladderwashout and it burst. Considering they hold 4 litres, you can imagine the mess. He didn't know how to get a patient ready for theatre and a patient who was in pain was told by him to wait for another 2 hours until the medication was due again. Didn't know how to do a NJJ feed. It's appauling.

So I spoke to the manager who said he'd make a note to say he wasn't suitable, but I know from past experience it won't happen.

Then the agency nurse got offended when I told him he shouldn't take placements on a surgical ward if he doesn't normally work surgical. He said he worked medical. I don't bloody care if he is offended, that is his problem not mine.

Specializes in OB, Telephone Triage, Chart Review/Code.

I worked as an agency nurse for awhile. One hospital I refused to go back to because there was little teamwork with the staff. I asked the charge nurse where to find something and was told that I would have to find my resource nurse to get the information! For pete's sake!

One thing I found out was each hospital does things differently. For instance, computer charting. It used to be easy just to grab the chart and get it done. Each hospital now has a different program and it can be very confusing.

I once had a patient with a PCA pump. I asked the nurse going off shift if we had to check it before she left. She said they didn't check them with 2 nurses and she really didn't know all that much about the pump. When I asked other staff about the pump (one that I was not familiar with), all of them said they don't use them much and didn't know that much about them! When I got an order to discontinue the pump, I asked for help and did not get any. I figured it out myself, but it was a system that used bags of medicine. When I asked about the procedure for "wasting" the medication in the bag, the charge nurse said I would have to find someone who knew how to do that. Of course, no one could tell me. The charge nurse said "just throw it away"! Wait a minute....I should be documenting how much is wasted and have a witness!

At this same hospital, there are no CNA's. I am doing assessments on 7 patients, passing A.M. meds, picking up breakfast trays one by one and taking them all the way down the hall to a closet, getting a new admission, discharging up to 6, picking up lunch trays, teaching breastfeeding, assisting new patient to bathroom, passing pain medications, emptying waste baskets that are overflowing with pizza boxes, standing in line at the pyxis to retrieve medications, calling pharmacy because one drawer is empty, noting orders, chart checks, tearing discharge charts down, stripping beds and throwing things away from the discharged patient's room so all housekeeping has to do is wipe, mop, and remake the bed. Picking up dinner trays and walking them one by one down the hall. At the end of 12 hours, I am finally able to chart and write up the report sheet.

Oh, I forgot to say that on my first day there, the house supervisor was standing right next to me and said "Agency staff DO NOT need orientation". Excuse me, I don't need orientation for my nursing skills and taking care of my patients, but I do need orientation to where things are and how things are done there! Especially the charting now-a-days. I do not find it any easier and was disgusted to find that I had to wait to chart because all of the computers were being used!

I was a very good agency nurse and one hospital loved having me there. I stopped working there because the commute was too long.

I have since gotten away from bedside nursing. It isn't worth it anymore for me.

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Specializes in Picu, ICU, Burn.
I am sick and tired of incompetent nurses, doctors, lawyers, politicians, dentists, dry cleaners, chefs, dog groomers, hell I am just sick and tired of incompetence! But, what can you do........you can't shoot them........you should love them, teach them, forgive them............or at least don't let the body float to the top of the lake:smokin:

:rotfl:

Incompetence is rampant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bottom line here folks..............what kind of idiot lets the bladderwashout (love that) burst?

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Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.
I have no problem helping agency nurses with finding things, charting, etc. I do have a problem when we get a GERIATRIC nurse working in the NICU!!! Yes, this happened at my hospital. Those rigorous yearly testing and competency evaluations are apparently not all that impossible to bypass if a geriatrics nurse can wind up in the NICU. Those people drive me insane and they give a bad name to others. We have also had several agency nurses claim to have NICU experience only to find out they were really newborn nursery nurses.

Trying to start a flame war w/ geriatric nurses??? :angryfire I agree with you that I would not be appropriate to just pick up a shift in NICU (would in fact scare the H@!! out of me) but.. comments like "Those people drive me insane and they give a bad name to others" and "if a geriatric nurse can wind up in the NICU" would seem to imply that we are a stupid group of nurses and honey that just isn't true. My job and responsiblities would scare the crap out of you too so lets just play nice here ok?

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Trying to start a flame war w/ geriatric nurses??? :angryfire I agree with you that I would not be appropriate to just pick up a shift in NICU (would in fact scare the H@!! out of me) but.. comments like "Those people drive me insane and they give a bad name to others" and "if a geriatric nurse can wind up in the NICU" would seem to imply that we are a stupid group of nurses and honey that just isn't true. My job and responsiblities would scare the crap out of you too so lets just play nice here ok?

Oh Lordy, you are reading something into my posts that isn't there. I am not trying to start a flame war with geriatric nurses. My problem with this nurse wasn't that she was a geriatric nurse, it was that she wasn't a NICU nurse and took an assignment in a NICU which gives agency nurses a bad name (not geriatric nurses). It would be no different if she was a L&D nurse, a public health nurse, a med-surg nurse, an OR nurse, etc. Maybe people have insulted you as a geriatrics nurse, but I am not one of them.

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Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. :)

I hate to say it, but the Agency nurses that work night shift around here are pretty dreadful. Not that they are incompetent, just lazy. Unfortunately, and flame me if you will, they are mostly male nurses, and I hate to slam my own gender, but that's the way it's been around here. I lost count how many of them are banned from coming to our facility.

I have, on the other hand, met a few awesome ones, so they all aren't bad.

Funny you should say this. I have refrained from mentioning this because I didn't want to offend anyone, but if there is a gender better suited to nursing (in general) in all honesty I would have to say it's female.

Not because I don't value men. I love men. But I have never seen a male nurse I would feel comfortable with working on me on the floor. Not because of the gender thing, but because from what I have seen they do not have what it takes, to say, do a good dressing. I used to work behind a male nurse and always had to redo his dressings, and he would leave the med cart in a mess.

On the other hand I think male nurses naturally excel in areas like the operating room where their stamina and quick reflexes are what keeps the surgeons requesting them to assist.

But about the agency thing. I was hoping to get into agency, eventually. I just hope I know my stuff before I get there.

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There is incompetency in all areas of the working world....But one comment about "agency nurses"... Those agency nurses are "angels" @ times... When we were severely understaffed.... I was so glad to see an agency nurse so I wasn't working 16 hr days.... I got to go home and rock my babies, instead of working like an indentured servant... and before this starts the flame war about "being weak: working in those conditions" Well, I am in rural WV and there were no other nurses in the area and I felt an obligation to my patients to provide health care to them....

I think Agency nurses... all nurses rock....

What saddens me-----> the trend in nursing to tear each other down, rather then to unite to change the crappy things in our profession.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
Funny you should say this. I have refrained from mentioning this because I didn't want to offend anyone, but if there is a gender better suited to nursing (in general) in all honesty I would have to say it's female.

Not because I don't value men. I love men. But I have never seen a male nurse I would feel comfortable with working on me on the floor. Not because of the gender thing, but because from what I have seen they do not have what it takes, to say, do a good dressing. I used to work behind a male nurse and always had to redo his dressings, and he would leave the med cart in a mess.

On the other hand I think male nurses naturally excel in areas like the operating room where their stamina and quick reflexes are what keeps the surgeons requesting them to assist.

But about the agency thing. I was hoping to get into agency, eventually. I just hope I know my stuff before I get there.

Boy, you could potentially open up a can of worms with that one. So I won't go there. :rotfl:

I was told the last time I worked by two ladies in a room "we've decided of all the nurses you're our favorite". So I'm confident in myself. (I think gay guys make better male nurses, but I don't want to say that too loudly because I'll get fried to a crisp. LOL)

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Specializes in Utilization Management.
Boy, you could potentially open up a can of worms with that one. So I won't go there. :rotfl:

I was told the last time I worked by two ladies in a room "we've decided of all the nurses you're our favorite". So I'm confident in myself. (I think gay guys make better male nurses, but I don't want to say that too loudly because I'll get fried to a crisp. LOL)

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I was truly amazed at the gentleness of the guys who cared for me when I was hospitalized. I could care less what someone's sexual orientation is, I need my pain meds or changing or whatever, and I'll bless the person that does it quickly and without a fuss.

That said, all this thread is doing is making me feel better about my decisions to refuse to float to areas in which I've had no orientation or specific training.

I can't imagine what would possess a nurse to say she had NICU training when she didn't! Isn't that sorta fraudulent?

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Boy, you could potentially open up a can of worms with that one. So I won't go there. :rotfl:

I was told the last time I worked by two ladies in a room "we've decided of all the nurses you're our favorite". So I'm confident in myself. (I think gay guys make better male nurses, but I don't want to say that too loudly because I'll get fried to a crisp. LOL)

Actually the three seasoned male nurses on my unit are awesome to work with and their patient's love them.

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well that turned in to a interesting discussion!!

This thread was about incompetent agency nurses, and not competent ones, that I know do exist. It's the ones who try and wing it and are there for the money that get me worked up.

Where I am, we don't have standards/tests for agency nurses, but I would really like to see it bought in. I think it's a great idea. We have a hospital agency, just not enough staff on it it fill the demand.

As for the teaching side, I simply don't see why I should teach agency nurses new skills. If they can't do something, it's quicker for me to do it than teach them. Fair enough, if it's one thing but when they can't do anything then my BP rises. However, if it's one of our own nurses, then yes, I'll take the time out to teach them because that is part of my job anyway.

Anyway, I'd never put my registration at risk. I guess some people just don't care. I've worked agency before so I do know how it is. All our agency staff get orientation to the ward.

Having a chat today with the girls at work who agree that the calibre of agency we get is very poor. I think the problem lies in that our hospital is very good for booking agency in advance, and even better for cancelling them at the last minute. Hence, alot of the good agency nurses won't risk it. I can see why.

It's a pretty small place where I am, and I've worked in all the hospitals in the area over the years so know how others function when it comes to agency. The big public hospital I worked at, we had alot of agency and they were damn good and regular. You never see the same person twice in our place...if you do, it's twice in about 3 months.

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Specializes in Picu, ICU, Burn.

I have worked with quite a few male nurses that I think are great and several who are just horrible. But I have to agree those male nurses who display some of the more feminine traits such as intuition and nurturing make better bedside nurses. But if I'm assigning the code bed or working in the ED I want the burly guy with the husky voice who moonlights as an EMT even if I have to go back after him and make sure all the ancillary stuff is done later.

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(I think gay guys make better male nurses, but I don't want to say that too loudly because I'll get fried to a crisp. LOL)

Hate to burst your bubble but I believe most men who are in nursing would strongly disagree with what you think-----as would their patients.

Interesting how negative stereotypes are condemned with strong admonitions as to the irrelevance of sexual orientation/who sleeps with who etc; Yet positive traits, (though equally sterotypical) are socially and politically acceptable.

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