Ok another vent thread here. This might be long so for your convenience I'm going to use paragraphs.
Yesterday was just completely mad. I scrubbed for an Ivor-Lewis oesophagectomy. This is a BIG case and involves two surgical incisions-a thoracotomy and a laparotomy at the same time. Because my workplace apparantly is stuck in the dark ages we only have one scrub nurse who has to somehow anticipate for two surgical teams and one scout nurse who has to run like mad to try and meet the needs of four demanding surgeons.
So I voiced my concerns the morning of the case and even the day before that I needed two scout nurses because I have a novice with me who is still learning. She is very good but as said she is a novice and doesn't know where everything is and has never seen a bleeding or airway emergency.
So I got my third person for a little while then they sent her away leaving me with the novice. We coped for a while but soon I could just see that things were getting out of hand. The retractor they were using was causing the blood pressure to plummet to about systolic 38, anaesthetists were getting worried, we had to do an emergency splenectomy, lots of blood loss etc. I was concerned that my scout was not coping very well, I was worried that the count was not going to be accurate and overall worried about patient safety.
So I thought I did the right thing by getting my scout to call the team leader to ask for some help. The Team leader walks in and immediatley demands to know what she wanted me to do, what was the problem here and do you realise that your not the only one here who needs help!
I'm just dumbfounded. I'd asked for help and was promised extra resources which were taken away from me. I'm trying to be the patient and staff advocate and I'm being treated with derision. I just told her that the allocation is inappropriate, you took away my promised resources and how many other patients in this unit have a BP of 38, with a deflated lung?
So I got an extra pair of hands but I almost stabbed myself with a needle and I sort of went into shock. I started shaking and the tear just came out and I couldn't stop them. I felt angry and frustrated that I'd just been spoken to like crap. The surgeons god bless them realised that I was having a moment and told me that this is the only hospital they know of which relies on one scrub nurse for the procedure and that I did a great job. This is the first time I've ever felt more supported by the medical staff than the nurses.
So I didn't sleep at all last night just couldn't stop thinking about what could have gone wrong and how appalling we were treated by our team leader. So I called in sick and found out that they had to cancel half the days cases because of the amount of people who have called in sick.
I seriously hope that this will make management and the people who run my department wake up and realise that they cannot work us like this anymore.
