Is this abandonment?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.

My state (Missouri) considers sleeping on the job a form of patient abandonment. I fully agree with this and think people have been getting away with it for too long. What do you think?

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if you are asleep you can not be aware of problems that your patients may have....too often these people are fired and they go to another facility and do the same thing

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what if you are on your break and other staff are covering the floor?

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If you're sleeping on your break and someone is covering for you, it is no abandonment because your pts are being cared for.

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Specializes in nursery, L and D.

I agree, if you say to coworkers, "I am going into the lounge to sleep for a while can you watch so and so", you have reported to someone, so you are not abandoning your pt. Now if you don't report, go hide somewhere and sleep that is abandoning, IMO.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.
what if you are on your break and other staff are covering the floor?

I don't think it was meant to be interpreted that way. I would think it was for the cases we see so many times where it's noc shift and you can't find your staff; only to find that they are sleeping in a corner somewhere.

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Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

I completely disagree with anyone sleeping at work at anytime. I use to have people do this when I would stay over nights at the hospital. They would come back disoriented, foggy and sat at the desk with blankets around them for another 45 minutes after their breaks trying to wake up. I get sick of the "but I work midnights, you don't understand." I had one woman not show for her patient that was coding, they had to go into the break room to wake her. She couldn't even think clear for the first 10 minutes of the code. I felt it was unsafe for her to be there and found it completely unacceptable. The reason given from most of these people for working nights is to spend more time with their familys. That is great! I am all about my family, but when I am at work, I am there to work.

I work afternoons. I get home no earlier than 2 am at any given night. I am usually awake until 4, get up at 7:45 to get my dd on the bus and then stay up until my son goes to school at 12. (kindergarten) If I am lucky I get to lay back down for an hour or so. A typical day for me is cleaning, doing laundry, going to the gym and working out in the yard. ALL BEFORE WORK. I am tired some nights too, but still, would never, ever, ever sleep at work. If you are that tired, stay home. If you can't handle the shift, get off of it. Sorry, that is how I feel.:twocents:

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Specializes in Everything but L&D and OR.
I don't think it was meant to be interpreted that way. I would think it was for the cases we see so many times where it's noc shift and you can't find your staff; only to find that they are sleeping in a corner somewhere.

if you are talking about that, then i agree with you too. i am from missouri as well and remember a lot of those nights.

but on the other hand, if you are on your break, i don't think that should count. it is your own time.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.

But why would anyone need to sleep while they are at work? I have had occasion to sleep at work one time in all my years: I was working day shift and had a terrible migraine. The choices were to either go home or take two excedrin and lie in a dark room for half an hour. That was the only time I ever slept at work. As for working noc shift, so what? I worked noc shift for a while (right after returning from maternity leave with my second baby) and I rearranged my sleep schedule so I could STAY AWAKE AT WORK. Just because it is nighttime, doesn't mean you need to sleep.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I am very very against sleeping at work, period. If you need to sleep on your breaks, then you are probably not as alert as you should be the rest of the shift too. When you work nights, you stay awake, same as on day shift or evening shift. Its called WORK for a reason. And...when you agree to work night shift you MUST have time allotted to sleep during the day. If you don't or can't sleep during the day, then you need to change shifts, facilties or do whatever it takes so that you can get uninterrupted sleep during the day.

In all the years I worked nights (12 of the 14 years I worked as a staff nurse), I had babysitters during the day for my kids, worked around my kids' schedule, had hubby work an off shift too so we could trade the kids off, did whatever it took so that I could sleep uninterrupted during the day. This is the only fair thing to your patients and co-workers.

End of traumarus's rant...

And here is a link to a recent thread with this same topic with >5 pages of responses. (This strikes a cord in many nightshifters).

https://allnurses.com/forums/f8/sleeping-during-nightshift-206191.html

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Specializes in A myriad of specialties.

In my opinion it IS abandonment unless you are on a break and KNOW that your pts are being cared for. But I can definitely see the arguement against sleeping on breaks too if doing so causes some disorientation/fogginess.

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I def agree that its not abandonment if you have someone covering your patients just like if you ran down to the caf for break......but i dont think anyone should be sleeping on their shift....i know that i would not be able to function after i jus woke up let alone give meds etc. I dont see anyone sleeping during day shift on their breaks, so why should the night people.....sure its nighttime.....but we get up early too for day shift and you have to make sure you get sufficient sleep.....whether it be during the day or at night depending on your shift!!

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