A nurse friend of mine had the day from hell at work the other day. He was telling me all about it. Patients moving, discharging, admitting and too many patients from the get go. Just chaos all day. Then he gets a call a couple of days later asking about a personal belonging of a patient that was missing, he didn't get the inventory sheet done on admit. So they are looking for this one item. He said he didn't feel that doing the inventory had a very high priority when insulin was past due and patients were asking for water and to go to the bathroom and admissions had to be done. So I guess the jist of it, he is being told this must be done, MUST on admission. I don't like what is happening to nursing, can't the nurse set priorities anymore? Is everything an absolute MUST? How are nurses supposed to get anything done that is important if inventory sheets are listed as a high priority?( just an example). I think the world has gone crazy sometimes. He says there are signs all over the place that the hospital is not responsible for valuables and families are to take them home. He did not unpack for her, her family did. So he thinks he may get fired for this. Seems a bit much to me.
He also said that most of the nurses don't change dressings, do actual assessments, etc, but chart that they do it because it is a must, because the work load is more than a human can handle. It is really scary to be a patient in a hospital I think. I wonder if it is like this everywhere?
