Lone RN in L&D

[RNBelle]

Just curious as to what policies are at other places. Supposedly we are to always have 2 RNs staffed always in L&D but when there is a staffing crisis it seems the 2 RN rule goes out the window. Am I wrong to be totally ticked that every now and then I walk into work with no other RN available? There will be someone oncall but its just stressful and I don't like it. Especially since I have only been doing L&D for just over a year.

[babyktchr, BSN, RN]

You do 75-100 births a MONTH and only staff one RN at night??? OMG. My unit does that and I staff 3 with NOT A SOLE on the floor. WOW. We used to cut down to 2, but had some scary stuff happen and we upped to 3. Thank goodness our administration listened. Some nights we do go down to 2, but the 3rd nurse is in house on call, so there is no wait time to come in if all hell breaks loose. I know this is happening all over...and it is scary stuff.

[RNBelle]

Like I say, it doesn't happen too often that I am alone, but it is a nail bitter when I am. Shoot some nights it's a nail bitter when it's just 2 RNs in L&D.

[babyktchr, BSN, RN]

Holy cow

[miss81, BSN, RN]

We average 40 births/ months and we have 3 RN's. But our delivery room is far away from the actual unit. We are assigned like this: 1 RN for delivery rm, 1 RN for Nursery (but we do have mostly rooming-in unless we have a sick baby), this RN also receives the baby in delivery and must be NRP trained, and 1 RN in charge and takes care of the antenatal/postpartum patients on the unit. Do you guys only have caseroom to take care of or do you also have the rest like I mentioned above???

[RNBelle]

It's just one big unit. One side of the unit is L&D and the other half is PP and nursery. We do couplet care also unless there is a special care baby and then staffing really sucks because that takes up a nurse a usually there is only 4 of us working - 2 RNs and 2 LVNs.