Not enough equipment

[Rexie]

I can't tell you how many times I've had to hang IV fluids and/or meds on a patient only to realize he doesn't have an IV pole and/or pump at the bedside. There will be none in the equipment room so then I'll have to go search. Sometimes an empty bed will have one. Sometimes, if I ask, another nurse will have a patient who is no longer receiving IV meds and I can have theirs (after I clean it of course). There have been really tough days when I've had to delay giving antibiotics because I had to wait for one patient to finish receiving his IV meds so I could then clean the pole and pump and use it for the other patient.

There are times when we can't find the bladder scanner or the clippers or the otoscope or something else that we need to do our jobs. It make me angry and resentful that it can be so difficult to find the tools I need to take care of our patients.

It's been brought to the attention of management. They keep telling us that they're working on it. It might get a little better and then we're back to where we were before. Does this happen to other hospitals? I've never seen anything quite like this before.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

When I was a hospital nurse, I worked at a hospital that was consistently ranked #1 or #2 by US News and World Report. I specifically remember admitting a tube fed child in the middle of the night (one who was on continuous feeds) and calling for a Kangaroo pump. The response? "There aren't any left in the hospital." I remember saying "HOW can we be the #1 hospital in the country but not have the supplies we need to FEED our patients?"

[Julius Seizure]

When I was a hospital nurse, I worked at a hospital that was consistently ranked #1 or #2 by US News and World Report. I specifically remember admitting a tube fed child in the middle of the night (one who was on continuous feeds) and calling for a Kangaroo pump. The response? "There aren't any left in the hospital." I remember saying "HOW can we be the #1 hospital in the country but not have the supplies we need to FEED our patients?"

I recently experienced almost this exact situation! I also work in a highly ranked hospital and when our floor called to order two feeding pumps for two of our ICU patients, we were told that there were NONE left in the hospital and our patients would have to wait to be fed until some were available. Are you kidding me!?

[amoLucia]

Did you know you can use a safety pin to hang an IV bag from the curtain?

I've also hung a bag on a clothes hanger and then hung it on the bedside curtain rod.

[JBudd, MSN]

During my bout of chemo a year ago, I ended up in my own ER with influenza and a massive cellulitis, 104 fevers, etc. Couldn't start my abx as there were no pumps for my central line. Several hours later, my (traveler) nurse came in, hooked up fluids and meds to my central line (!) and let them run by gravity.

[Ayvah, RN]

Unfortunately this is a routine complaint. The most common shortages I've experienced have been dynamaps, pulse ox's, and unfortunately even christmas trees and portable oxygen. It is a frequent waste of time trying to hunt down items and order them, delaying patient care. I'd say this is just below poor staffing as the top things that inhibit nurses being able to do their job/patients getting proper care.

[djh123]

Not enough supplies is an almost-constant problem where I work.

[canigraduate]

I wrote a nasty gram to my manager and director just a couple of weeks ago about this same thing.

We have computers on wheels and little hand held scanners and, at the time, only 1/3 of them worked on my floor. We didn't have any wheelchairs, we didn't have any IV or SCD pumps, and I was having to hunt for every thing I needed. Our unit is based on our "productivity," so when I couched it in terms of not being able to turn patient rooms over, they noticed.

The email I wrote was blistering, although polite, and suddenly there were workorders being put in and acted upon. Our wheelchairs magically appeared back on our unit. I also took pictures and have threatened to send them to the DON and materials director. Suddenly we are no longer on the bottom of the priority list. I wonder if our maintenance requests were even making it out of the unit I pitched a fit.

I would suggest, whenever you are out of equipment, write an incident report and notify risk management. In your case, what you are going through is ridiculous. If you have tried the chain of command and it isn't working, go around the people who are being obstacles.

Also, hospitals don't like to admit this, but they can rent equipment from vendors. It's vastly more expensive than buying old outdated crap the way they like to, but it is an option. Kick up a big enough stink and you will get what you need. You just have to be ready to be "that nurse."

Forget about getting equipment at night, though, for you night shifters reading this. If you need something, you have to go to another unit and steal it. I was working in this hellhole in Michigan in the ICU and we didn't have any feeding pumps. I had another nurse watch my patients while the CNA and I hunted through the dirty equipment rooms until we found one. I sent another nasty gram about that experience, and lo and behold we had new stuff. 2 new feeding pumps, LOL. It took 6 weeks, though.