PACU Insanity

I've been working in the PACU for a couple of months now and it's nuts. I work at a large institution that is usually full to capacity. Patients are sometimes boarded in the ED or PACU for up to 2 days. This is rare, but having them overnight or for 12+ hours is not. The other night we had 7 patients overnight and the ED had 20. For a few months, they were putting the ED on divert (no $$$), but the city said no more. So it's just getting crazy because they will not under any circumstance stop surgeries (tons of $$$).

It's really insane and and its unethical. The place is loud and the staff is loud. They yell across the place all night. there are people coming and going and they need the light to clean or set up for the next day. The patients complain, the families complain and the staff complains but the greed runs that joint. There have been complaints made by staff and patients to the department of pulic health, but nothing changes. We are all sure that some political strings are being pulled.

The stress is multiplied by the fact that a lot of people feed into the chaos by refusing to make anyone accountable. People take long breaks, are frequently late or call in sick whenever they are fed up. People leave early and arrive late without documenting that they did so and get paid as if they work. We frequently run out of supplies and equipment and it can be difficult to get anything stocked because the drama just doesn't stop. It's really unnecessary. Many of the charge nurses and assistants have selective hearing and can only hear those who they like or can wield power over them.

For instance, we ran out of epidural pumps and I called material services and they said they didn't have any. I told one of the one of the charge nurses (we have 2 charges), she said "Then you need to call all of the floors and tell them to send their pumps to material services." I looked at her like she was nuts. I was busy taking care of patients; she was sitting on her rather large butt talking to her friends.

I have had to leave the unit to go to material services to get equipment myself. This is after informing charge nurses and asking assistants to do it several times and finding that they were on the internet or sitting and chatting. They don't care because they know I can't do anything about it.

It's really unbelievable and I have already resigned. I have 3 more weeks there. After about 3 weeks there, I had a meldtdown because I had an unstable ICU pt (no beds in the ICU) and couldn't get anyone to help me. We had nothing I needed and the ICU doc was giving orders and getting bent out of shape because it was taking so long to get anything done. Meanwhile, one of my coworkers was working on a crossword puzzle (I'm straight-up serious) and the usual BS was going on. that's the day I started looking to move on.

I just can't believe the crap that goes on in some of these places. And then people have the nerve to ask me why I don't like it there...