So, for the last 3 years I've gone from one crummy situation to another. Started out as a tech in a level one trauma department with a 16 to one ratio (RNs had a 6-8 to 1 ratio, which is also crazy), then got my first job cardiac step down with a 5 to 1 ratio with tech ratios 10 to 1, then went to a ortho surgical unit with a RN ratio of 8 to 1 no techs or secretaries. Needless to say I have quite a few sarcastic posts on these boards about the stupidity of choosing nursing as a professional career. Mostly because I felt that the ratios above don't even allow for the bare minimal care a person should get in a hospital, much less the care that we are expected by most facilities to give. It's wrong. Yet I only get two answers from other nurses that go along the lines of the following: a) You are a nurse and thus you must give up your life, body, and soul to your patients along with putting up with a crappy work enviornment because if you stand up for yourself and refuse to work under such conditions who will take care of the patients? b) Yeah, it's stupid and we hate it, but what are we going to do? We have no power.
I hate both of those answers.
I regress. I finally traveled to a hosptial that seems to care. Its SOOOOOOOOO crazy. I'm working on a medical surgical unit (which in normal hospitals have ratios of 1 to 6 - 10) that has RN to patient ratios of 1 to 5!!! 5 is their absolute max! Is that crazy or what? But wait, it gets even weirder....they have PCAs/techs/CNAs ratios that match the RNs!!!!!! It's a Nurse/CNA team that cares for 5 patients!!!!!!!! Have you ever heard of something soooooo wonderful?!! Plus everything is computerized, which I love, and they have every kind of niceness in the individual rooms for the patients. My first day there I cried, just went to the bathroom and cried because I had no idea that this sort of nursing even existed in reality. I don't know how this hospital got this way, but every hospital on the face of the planet should care so much about their staff AND their patients.
It was relieving to find out that I don't really hate the life I chose for myself and that it is right for us to be angry with hospitals that force us to have ratios that do not allow for excellent care of our patients.
