I was just wondering how everybody out there's census was doing lately.
My unit has overall been slow this year - and we have been really slow the past 3-4 months. So far for the year, our
Our census is down to about HALF our average. Our average - not our max. It's crazy. We are all getting downstaffed like crazy, using our vacation hours if we still want to get paid. We are floating to other units (peds under a year old, and newborn nursery), but it's still not enough. We staff for about 18 nurses each shift, and we have been working with around 11-13 nurses now for a long time.
The entire area (Chicagoland) has been slower as far as NICU is concerned, but still... it's getting a little crazy!
We all keep saying that we are glad that there are less sick / premature babies out there, however... we enjoy getting paid!
We were pretty slow at the end of August to the middle of September, but we've picked right back up. I swear, there must have been an IVF party somewhere about 6 months ago. We're packed to the gills with multiples.
I just left AZ and we were dead slow all summer....very weird since it is usually full all summer. Sucked because we got floated and were cancelled all the time. When we are busy we use 26-29 nurses and we were using 17-20 most of the summer. I heard it's still pretty slow.
Now I am in WA... when I got here the little 25 bed unit was full and dying for nurses. Then one day they all went home. I was cancelled last week and this week
Our census was down to 21 this morning, and we had 3-5 babies going home in the next 2 days. Our average census is usually about 37-45 - so we are still at about half of our average. We're working with 10 nurses right now, it's ridiculous. We are still getting downstaffed / floating like crazy.
BoonersmomRN
1,132 Posts
We were VERY slow June/July....down to 12-17 babies and we are a 30 bed unit that is normally packed.
Picked up again Aug/Sept
We are slow again. Last night we had 13..got 1 admission..
*sigh* I have no paid time off to use to be cancelled....LUCKILY there are people who do have time and have been using it.