Mandatory Meeting With CNO

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So all of us have to go to this mandatory meeting.

She wants to find out why my floor cannot keep nurses.

I guess she cannot figure out on her own what working constantly short and without techs does to a nurse.

I am going to suggest that everyone in senior management put away their fancy clothes and come work the floor for at least 2 consecutive weeks.

Maybe this will give them a fresh perspective?

Too late for me though, I am out. I am not going to tolerate this abuse any longer....

I hope though for current and future colleagues that someone wakes up and learns how to staff a floor.....

Actually, I think before I go I will off to take over the Director position......

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Sorry this is happening to you and your unit. This is often a case, in my opinion, of managers who have never worked a floor, or did many years ago. They should make you charge, and let you run the floor!

Before you go, I would make some suggestions. If they hire more CNA's, then it could lighten a tough load. Even some per diem CNA's and some sitters (or a CNA that would do both). If they are unwilling to hire full time RN's, then perhaps some per diems--a large pool of them. Another thought is to have a unit specific nurse educator, and hire a few new grads, that the educator precepts.

Unfortunetely, as floor nurses, the writing is on the wall that management often does what they can to cut costs and not hire nurses and other staff, and patient care suffers. It is not safe, and seems that they work a skeleton crew until something major happens.

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Specializes in critical care, ER,ICU, CVSURG, CCU.

i fear it getting worst as health care reform, evolves

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Do you work on my floor? We lost more than 70% of our staff yet they still do not seem to be getting the message. Those of us who are left won't be around long. Working short is not working out. I LOVE your idea of asking them to come work on the floor for 2 weeks. It will never happen, but I LOVE THIS IDEA.

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I would love to see them work the floors and get the exact same assignment and work load that everyone else gets.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Do you still work at that LTAC???? Clearly......They are not interested in changing. and I'd think about that director job...you don't want your license listed for this place....((HUGS))

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So, would you rather the CNO try to fix your floor's retention problem without speaking to the staff nurses? The tone of your post makes me think that you have a bit of a negative attitude towards the CNO & her efforts to make meaningful change on your floor. Maybe the staff's attitude has something to do with the retention issue?

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i work in a 450 bed hospital, & am fortunate to work on the "dream" floor- L&D/postpartum. we get lots on nurses who come to us from different floors- med-surg, ICU- & they all tell us how poorly those floors are staffed & how overworked, overloaded they were- on a routine basis. it all sounds distressing for the nurses- & scary for the patients who are actually being poorly cared for as a result. given the # of nurses i have heard this from, i tend to believe them. have heard the same thing from nurses that come from med surg floors of different facilities. i personally spent a couple of years working one of these floors thinking i needed a change of scenery- & found it all very true. why can management not see these things? the floor i worked on- they were told flat out what was wrong- they just didn't care- had no compassion whatsoever.

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So, would you rather the CNO try to fix your floor's retention problem without speaking to the staff nurses? The tone of your post makes me think that you have a bit of a negative attitude towards the CNO & her efforts to make meaningful change on your floor. Maybe the staff's attitude has something to do with the retention issue?

Heh. Puh-lease.

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Specializes in NICU.

In December 2010, I was forced to retire from nursing after 35 years, due to my deteriorating health, and now receive SSDI. I worked in the NICU for 31 years. When I left, we had 85 Level III beds.

The staffing situation has gotten so much worse since I had to stop working. The month after I left the hospital made drastic cuts in staff hours & benefits. They changed many positions from full to part-time. These changes were presented to the staff in a series of meetings with the Nursing Director, the CEO, and other members of Administration. I watched one of the taped meetings.

Staff members in the audience looked stunned. They were crying, asking questions, and offering multiple possible alternatives to what they were being told by the CEO. All were denied.

I think what upset me the most was the way that the information was passed on to staff. Starkly, brutally, with no advance notice. No compassion, no understanding of what these decisions meant to families. That it was putting some employees in an impossible situation. That staff would be forced to quit if they could not adjust their schedules or live on the decreased income. Administration just DID NOT CARE, and it showed.

Within 6 months, our hospital lost over 200 nurses. The NICU where I had worked initially lost 40 nurses. Many of them were senior nurses. For this note, I will define senior RNs as those with >10 years NICU experience. Over the past 2 years, an additional 15+ senior nurses have resigned

Many of staff lost in that period were replaced with new graduates with BSN degrees. I don't have anything against working with a new graduate in the NICU. I have done so multiple times over the years, & enjoyed precepting them. I had actually precepted both the current Nursing Director and Clinical Instructor in our NICU. I love to teach. But it got scary when the most senior staff member on the NICU on a particular shift had 2 years experience, & was expected to precept new employees.

I watch the show "Undercover Boss" every week, and I want someone to work undercover in our NICU, and in various units throughout the hospital, for a week each. I badly want this. Because the hospital is suffering. Staff morale is down. Stress is sky high.

During an appointment with my Internal Medicine doctor 6 months ago, he stated that he no longer sends patients to our hospital. In his words "________hospital's reputation is in the toilet." It just breaks my heart. :(

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i work in a 450 bed hospital, & am fortunate to work on the "dream" floor- L&D/postpartum. we get lots on nurses who come to us from different floors- med-surg, ICU- & they all tell us how poorly those floors are staffed & how overworked, overloaded they were- on a routine basis. it all sounds distressing for the nurses- & scary for the patients who are actually being poorly cared for as a result. given the # of nurses i have heard this from, i tend to believe them. have heard the same thing from nurses that come from med surg floors of different facilities. i personally spent a couple of years working one of these floors thinking i needed a change of scenery- & found it all very true. why can management not see these things? the floor i worked on- they were told flat out what was wrong- they just didn't care- had no compassion whatsoever.

Med-surg floors are staffed horribly, they don't bring in any money.

Take an elective surgery floor, that brings in a lot of money, that floor is very well staffed.

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The hospital CEOs are not certain about what Obama-care will bring so they are ensuring that they accumulate their acorns and get their money out before the changes are put into place.

Wall Street doesn't like uncertainty. Neither does any entrenched culture.

Everybody in the entire US healthcare industry is just waiting now to see what happens.

In the meantime, it won't be easy for the nurses.

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