our unit secretaries are lovely women. but so far as i've noticed, none of them (well, maybe one of them) can read or write or do "complicated math." you know, stuff like "we have 16 beds and 15 patients plus 2 in the or and three transfers out. how many beds will we have available at 7 pm?"
if you're in an isolation room doing a sterile dressing change or trying to stem the river of poop your patient is disgorging, and someone wants to talk to you on the phone, the secretaries page overhead "ruby, you have a phone call on line 1." followed immediately by "ruby, it's line 3." (they cannot even keep straight which line your call is on, which causes a lot of hard feelings from family members who have to hold forever and then get the wrong nurse and have to hold some more.) if you don't answer your call immediately, they'll page again. it seems they cannot be separated from facebook long enough to get up, come to the door of your room and find out why you aren't answering the phone. nor will they take messages. i only recently discovered that two of the secretaries don't take messages because they cannot read or write and the other two think it's beneath them.
i've always known our secretaries couldn't spell. you'd be surprised how many ways they can "spell" ruby. (roobee, rubbee, rubbie, rube, etc.) but it wasn't until, in a housekeeping frenzy, our manager rearranged all the forms at the secretary's desk that i realized they couldn't read. they had memorized the location of the forms they'd need and just grabbed them. it helped that so many of the forms were color coded.
now management is requiring a literacy test before hiring unit secretaries. i think it's a marvelous idea, but you would not believe how much resistance it's getting. you would think that literacy would be a job requirement. not so much, i guess.
Not quite a unit secretary, but I had a front desk person, completely literate, but refused to tell pts, when they called to schedule an allergy test, not to take their antihistamines 7 days prior to allergy skin testing because she "shouldn't know any clinical information." So many pts had to reschedule their skin testing because she refused to tell them and I was getting yelled at by the pt. The doc, PA, and manager told this person she HAS to tell them but she thought it was outside her responsibility.
I've only had issues w/ the HUCs at the SNF I lived in. The hospital ones were invaluable. (Although where I'm at now, we don't have one on the noc shift and I've heard from the day staff that they're pretty useless. Whenever budget talks come up over breakfast, the RNs who work day/nocs always say "Get rid of the HUCs. We do their jobs for them anyway.) But the other two hospitals I've worked that had them, they were great.
The SNF though, HUC #1 never knew where anything was at the nursing station. I was new and would ask her where a form was in all those drawers and cabinets surrounding the desk where she was parked; her answer was ALWAYS, "I don't know, I'm not the nurse." But I'm not asking you a nursing question. I'm asking you a health unit question. You ARE the health unit coordinator.
HUC #2 would always be after me for not answering my (unit issued) cell phone. Never would ask why, just "You didn't answer your phone." Um, I was helping a lady to the BR. Do YOU answer a phone while another person is peeing?? Or, I was on my unpaid lunch break. I didn't answer my phone because I left it on my med cart. I don't take work-related calls on my unpaid lunch break because I don't work for free.
But illiterate?? I'm astonied. ("Astonished" isn't a strong enough word. Must lapse into 1500s English. Great source for strong words.)
T-Bird78
1,007 Posts
Not quite a unit secretary, but I had a front desk person, completely literate, but refused to tell pts, when they called to schedule an allergy test, not to take their antihistamines 7 days prior to allergy skin testing because she "shouldn't know any clinical information." So many pts had to reschedule their skin testing because she refused to tell them and I was getting yelled at by the pt. The doc, PA, and manager told this person she HAS to tell them but she thought it was outside her responsibility.