Nursing Nightmare - Whats's the most number of patients you cared for by yourself?

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The most # of patients by myself

Med/Surg - 15

Telemetry - 8

Psych - 20 (Whole unit of adolescents)

Long Term Care - 40 (With another LPN and 2 CNA)

Specializes in Gerontology.

Complex Care. Due to a no show for night, and refusal of anyone from evenings staying, I was the only nurse for 28 pts.

No CNA, PSW, Tech nothing, Just me. One unit sent help for 1st rounds. 2nd rounds I did on my own. Management did nothing in am when I told them.

Luckily, no one was acutely ill.

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Specializes in L&D, PP, Nursery.

14 babies in the nursery BY MYSELF!

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11 by myself one evening on a rehab unit, called up the manager, raised cain thought it would be taken care of, thought it would never happen again. Next night came in and had 12, shows you how much she cared about what I had to say. Called the DON and reported the manager, resigned and never set foot in the place again. I was physically ill for a month, didn't work for 6 months, I can't describe what a wreck I was after caring for a dozen patients all by myself. No patient got hurt or suffered any injury as result of the outrages nurse patient ratio but the nurse was in pretty bad shape.

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Specializes in critical care: trauma/oncology/burns.

Working telemetry unit: myself and one other RN. We each had 11 patients, no CNA's. I, myself, had 4 transfers out and 4 admissions. What a night! (2008)

Back in the 70's I was the only night nurse in the ICU with 10 patients, many on vents. One code cart, ONE ambu bag. Horrow show.

If you got pulled to another floor you often worked 2 floors: example: you worked a 32 bed med-surg unit on the third floor and worked a smaller unit, say the "eye" floor which was located on the 2nd floor. If a patient on the med-surg unit needed pain meds, the CNA or nursing assistant would call you up and you would then go up to the 3rd floor, administer the medication, then head back down to the 2 nd floor to finish giving out your meds. The Nursing Administration, at that time (1976) was worthless. In fact, RN's at that mid-town NYC hospital were not considered "professionals"...we were considered "Para-professionals" Guess who earned the "professional" title? The Paramedics! Go figure (nothing against the 'medics, I was a civilian EMT-B, back in the day)

But reading some of the above posters, nothing much has changed except the patients have gotten sicker!

athena

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Sixty assisted living residents with 2 to 3 LNA's.

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Mid 80s, MedSurge, night shift....10:1. No CNAs

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Complex Care. Due to a no show for night, and refusal of anyone from evenings staying, I was the only nurse for 28 pts.

No CNA, PSW, Tech nothing, Just me. One unit sent help for 1st rounds. 2nd rounds I did on my own. Management did nothing in am when I told them.

Luckily, no one was acutely ill.

Just curious as to why you accepted assignment. Were you afraid they'd fire you if you didn't? Was it loyalty to the other nurses who worked the shift before you and you knew they were tired? If it happened again would you refuse assignment?

I don't mean to pry but I'm just genuinely curious. I think nurses as a whole need to come together and stand strong to stop this abuse and sadly, only when we refuse will it happen. They take advantage of us caring too much.

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.

We have had on a med surg unit (this was around 2003 maybe) and we had 14 patients each. The bad thing was that we had 2 RNs and 1 LPN on the shift and we as RNs had to round on and assess the patients that the LPN cared for. The charge nurse also had a full load and ran the unit. It was not run!

On tele, I had a load of 8, and in ICU 4.

Anne, RNC

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Specializes in Case Mgmt, Anesthesia, ICU, ER, Dialysis.

12 dialysis patients with another LPN - this was NOT the norm, but our tech got a call 10 minutes into the shift her husband was in the ER with chest pain, so we didn't have a choice.

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PACU.

ER, travel assignment, 12 patients (beds), 4 of them ICU/ vent or trauma.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

11 patients on an acute care unit on nights. One other RN, the "charge", but she also had 11 patients of her own. No tech or ward clerk. One of the patients started yelling her room-mate was going to knife her. The room-mate, an 80-year-old woman, produced a knife she hid from her dinner tray and said she reckoned she would knife her room-mate sometime during the night. I had to put the "knifer" in a wheelchair and take her with me all night, parking her in the doorway of whatever room I went to so I could watch her, because there was no help to be had and I couldn't get restraints as she was believed to be too feeble to actually do any harm. I have learned never to trust the feebleness of a patient. Dawn finally came and everyone survived.

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

77-79 Nights, Charge LPN:

26 Medical Patients w/ 2 aiides

8 ICU w/1 aide

79-82:Nights, Charge LPN, 1 aide

14 Telemetry/Resp step down pts

by 82 with vent pts got second nurse, no aide

82-92 now RN charge

Telemetry/Resp step down

4-6 vent dependent patients; w/ 3 RN's staffing 14 beds

87-92, 3-11 RN Per diem

32 SNF pts w 2 aides

Started home care per diem in 85; went FT 96, Carried 32-36 pt case load

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