Is it me or are these facilities really bad?

[nursebey, LPN, LVN]

I've been an LPN for 7 years now, before that an STNA or CNA in some places. I planned to go on and get my NP eventually so I was all in from the start.I graduated from a really good vocational program with IV certification that I still haven't really used.

Over the seven years I've been a nurse I've had opportunities to work in addiction recovery and mental health, SNF, LTC, and home health. Often I work 3 12s and will pick up a part time or PRN job.

Lately I've been getting into jobs where its just a wreck. Last year I left a facility and took what I thought was a good job working in addiction recovery again (I was super excited). The pay was good for an office job, the facility, however, was doing some super illegal stuff. Case managers supervising nurses grouped into 'teams", patients not seeing the psychiatrist for 90 plus days and social workers would bring them in and expect the nurses to give them Haldol injections or change their medications from an AM dose to an HS dose without seeing a Dr. The more I stood my ground the more than clinical manager ( a social worker) reported me to HR and tried to make my life a living hell.

Became an ADN at a recovery center. Owner an ex-coke head, operations dir a washed out lawyer and the Dr providing tx met the owner in rehab. I stayed for a month and had to leave after the operations dir insisted I could supervise RNs because she read a single page of the nurse practice act but NOT the part about supervisory experience. I didn't get my check until 3 weeks after payday and I was afraid to loose my license.

Went back into LTC. Not told in the interview that it was a union building, there was mandation or that the DON was still is school getting her BSN. The admin came from another building in the company that was forcibly shut down. Got my paycheck and couldnt cash it. Orders for liquid vitamins being given as tablets, treatments all over the building just being signed off. Isolation and standard precautions being ignored and we were being forced to split units on opposite sides of the building. Meds not being ordered just a mess and bad nursing practice all around. I am seeing this trend of facilities working nurses to death, no lunches no breaks, expected to be okay with patients and their families being disrespectful and allowed to call black nurses ******* and being told its part of the job on top of the other stuff.I literally walked out of a building today waiting to be interviewed after they couldnt find my application for the third time and hearing how the staff was being talked to. I love being a nurse and wanted to go further but I am very discouraged and tired of just pushing pills. I hear the same complaints from other nurses. I do not want to switch careers, but I am exhausted. Is it like this everywhere? Maybe nursing just isn't for me anymore?I want to finsih my RN still, but now Im afraid of wasting time and money.

[CCRN2BE]

No, it is not like that everywhere. You need to run the other way and refuse to get involved in that mess.

[nursebey, LPN, LVN]

Thanks for your reply, its just seems like in my area theres a lot of companies coming in buying things up and they dont really have it all together. Im going to stick with it and just keep looking for something thats a good fit for me.Thnks again.

[Elektra6, ASN, BSN, RN]

I worked in a great facility and still had mean and/or demented patients calling the nurses, CNAs and even each other names. I always tried to correct this behavior but some people never changed. Sad.

[nursebey, LPN, LVN]

The demented patients dont really bother me, its the ones that are just plan out racist that get under my skin. I pick up agency shifts a lot too so they dont know what you look like when you walk through the door. 8/10 its alwasy assumed that Im an STNA or houskeeping, when I say Im the nurse they looked shocked. Ive heard other nurses share similar experiences and its just frustrating. Ive had families call the office when myself and a Dominican RN showed up to do a recert for a HH patient, patients ask to talk to my supervisor because I dont "look" like I SHOULD be a nurse. Im always clean and ironed scrubs usually ceil or navy, clean sneakers, i have a huge afro so i braid it up in dutch braids or a bun when Im working. It never used to bother me, I really care for my patients and its like in 2017 we are STILL dealing with this. I know if theyre demented theres nothing you can do but it does wear on you dealing with it day after day when all you want is to do your job.

[Cactus Nurse]

There are a lot of ****** facilities. I've worked in a few already and I've been a Nurse less than 2 years. I have a awesome job in a snf and love it. I actually found it while working registry. That could be a good way for u to test out facilities í ½í¸‰

My experiences- one facility was a ltc. The action I was assigned to was working off 2 carts that were on diff floors!!! ***** It was horrible. I would walk in a room and be like um where is this pt, "oh they are in activities." Ok where is that? Floor 3? Wtf I wanted to die lol. Then another place I worked at was a congregate living facility. Still rarely new, but I figured I'd give them a shot. We never had meds, I literally couldn't even borrow from other pt sometimes! no tx supplies. I would open the drain sponge and have to split it up- 1 for Trach and the other for gt. We wouldn't have simple things like saline. I wasn't even properly trained on ventilators, luckily I had a friend on a vent and knew a lot, but not everything so when my pts vent failed and I had to start bagging him, I didn't know how to fix the vent. Oh and it was my cna who messed up his vent and I didn't even trust her to bag him because she clearly didn't see he was in distress and kept attempting to do his peri care. It was horrible.