Noahm

I really think that members of the public who want to behave like this i.e. getting abusive when their loved one doesn't get one to one nursing care SHOULD BE FORCED to pay for one to one nursing care. The other night my colleague commenced a dressing change. As soon as she started her other patient unexpectedly arrested. She heard the emergency alarm and ran to the code. The dressing change patient ****** and moaned about how they were "left" and said that they were going to complain. This was even after they were told that their Nurse's other patient was critically ill. IF that is the kind of care that they want management should tell them to pay for their own private duty nurse.

If you aren't too busy could I have one as well? I am about to start a new job in Med Surg. Thank you so much! [email protected]

bump please.

Oh and we *try* to do a background q2 hourly with a linen trolley. And we are supposed to serve tea and coffee to patients via a drinks trolley or we get collared. Yeah right. As if we have time for that. Half our patients should be in ITU.

I work in Northern England and we have all this stuff right now. We are a 30 bed nightingale ward. We have 15 beds lined up down both the left and right side of the ward. We get 2 RNs per shift and it is acute medicine. We had a smoking room up until 5 years ago. On night shift Nurses could smoke in that room while documenting. We use a drug cart and paper medication charts. Yes, this is in 2011. If we need something from pharmacy we have to walk down to pharmacy with the paper drug chart. Then leave it there because pharmacy is "busy". Then you go back to the ward and the patient wants a pain killer but now the darn drug chart is in pharmacy. Pharmacy is only open 9-3 monday through friday and we have to mix all of our own drips. Graseby pumps are hard to come by and we calculate drip rates. still using what you call banana bags on ETOH patients. We are not allowed to wear sneakers, crocs, or clogs. We have to wear sensible black shoes without laces by order of the matrons. Our matron is a total *****. When our 30 bed ward only has two Nurses for the shift and we are on our knees doing med passes 3 hours late she is more worried about tidyness and the state of our uniforms. I purposefully wore bright neon pink socks to work because I knew she would call me up on it if she came around. And when she did I said "Really, is that the worse thing you can find to worry about when there are 2 RN's to 30 patients in med surg? Stupid *****. We have crank up and down beds and have to elevate the head of the bed with pillows. RNs are not allowed to catheterize male patients. This is how it is at my hospital in 2011. Northern England: about 50 years behind the rest of the world. Can't wait to go home to the USA in 6 months. Something tells me I am going to need a looooooong orientation after being over here for 9 years.

If someone is in AF the pulse oximeter will not always pick up an accurate 02 saturation because of the irregular heartbeat. But the changes in mental status show that he may have been hypoxic secondary to a million and one possibilities and needed a call to the doctor. It may have been a TIA obviously. I wouldn't have worried about the doctors attitude so much. I have cared for patients in AF whose pulse ox readings have been low, despite the machine being in place for awhile. Yet ABGs are fine.

Thanks ChristopherB.

Chuck, I have been working for the NHS for the last decade. It is tough. I wasn't kidding when I said we have 2 RN's to 30 patients in med-surg. We also take high dependency when ITU is full, palliative when the hospice is full and psych when the psych unit is full, and care of the elderly because there is a shortage of nursing homes .... which is all the time. I often work 16 hour days without a break. LOL. Lots of NHS trusts have been really mismanaged and are falling apart. Not good. RNTim49, I am really sorry to hear about your experiences. I know lots of excellent new grads over here (I am a student nurse instructor on my ward) that cannot find jobs even with contacts and good references. I have been trying to help them. I hope at least one of them gets my job when I go but their is a hiring freeze and they are not replacing Nurses that are leaving. Everyone is trying to go to Australia. I would go to Australia in a heartbeat if my entire family wasn't in Pennsylvania. The Nurses over here have no desire to go to the United States over Australia. I guess I can always look for a job as a walmart greeter. Should be fun trying to support my family on that wage.

Hi Chuck, I am not a BSN. I graduated from a well respected 3 year diploma school in the Lehigh Valley. We had statistics, chemistry and everything there and had enough university credits to get our BSN fairly quickly. I think the only thing I need now is some managment. Good, but still not a BSN I suppose. I think my part of PA still has high regard for diploma grads so fingers crossed. My degree in history isn't going to help much is it? LOL. I am in the North of England by the way.

Hello again, Thanks for all the replies. We are looking at the Lehigh Valley as that is where I grew up. The conditions here are pretty bad too. We have no set schedule and have to mix day, evening and night shifts all in the same week...sometimes coming off nights and being on 7 AM start the next day. The pay here is appalling and will be getting cut even more. 2 RNs for a 30 bed med/surg ward with no ward clerk and only very part time pharmacy as well as a shortage of doctors is what we are working with at the moment due to job cuts and hiring freezes. Point is I am used to appalling conditions LOL. As long as I can get a job somewhere and my husband can get our house here rented out we are good to go. I will be coming out before he and the kids and getting a job just to be on the safe side. If I don't get a job offer I guess we will have to stay put. Thanks for all your replies.

Hello Everyone, I am planning on relocating back to the USA (Pennsylvania) in early 2011. I have been an RN for ten years and have lots of experience. Most of that experience has been in the UK however as we moved here with my husband's job a year after I graduated from Nursing school in the States. My Penna. nursing license is current, active and in good standing. It has finally hit me that getting a job may be tough right now. I am hearing it is nearly impossible for new grads to find anything. Is it any better for experienced RN's? I have a decade of experience behind me of acute medical assessement units and med /surg and 5 years as a charge nurse for my floor. Ideally I would like to wait until the job market improves but my husband is losing his job here in the UK. The health system here is freezing Nurse wages, cutting hours and laying off and I just don't see a future here. My parents in the states are getting older now and I really want to get home. Desperately so. But if there are no jobs then there is no way. Just thought I would test the water and see what you guys think? In other words, is the job market over there really that bad??? Any advice, suggestions? Thanks.

Anyone????

I love med surg too!

I am getting really worried. I am planning on relocating back to the Lehigh Valley after 10 years in Europe and have my heart set on working at LVH. I am absolutely desperate to get home. We are just waiting for our house to sell and my English husband's visa to clear. But I am hearing that LVH is having a hiring freeze at the moment..... Is it really that bad? Things are pretty bad here in the UK which is why I want to come home. It is 2 RN's to 30 patients in acute med-surg here. I am hoping to get home to the LV and start applying for jobs in February/March. I graduated from St.Luke's in Bethlehem and have 11 years of acute medical experience with some surgical and rehab thrown in as well. 99% of this experience has been outside of the USA. My PA nursing license is current and active. I have done courses towards my BSc degree in Nursing here in England but funding as been completely cut due to the economy. Is there any chance of gaining employment as an RN at LVH? Any suggestions? I don't mind working at any of the area hospitals really but I sincerely have my heart set on LVH. Thanks, Anna

So so true about interrruptions getting interrupted. You are going around with the medicine cart and pouring some meds and someone phones, you go to the phone and on your way back someone shouts out for the commode, on your way to fetch the commode a phone call from lab comes in, on your way to take the phone call someone complains of shortness of breath. What was the first thing I was doing? It just goes on and on like this throughout drug rounds. If a wanderting confused patient wanders away during this it is your ass rather than the managers who refuse to staff the wards and hire nurses. .

I work in Med-surg. I once worked on a specialty surgical floor and found it too boring and routine. I like the variation in Med-Surg and the challenge of it. It can be hell on earth though. I hate the fact that our patients can be more complicated and require more care than on other floors and that we get a high number of dementia patients. Our ratios, however, are appalling. I may have 5 incontinant confused elderly patients who need to be fed at mealtime on top of 5 acutely ill patients. If one of the acutely ill patients goes bad and takes all of your time (which is a constantly occuring situation), the families of the elderly patients accuse you of leaving their loved one to rot because you don't want to be bothered with elderly people. I like elderly people and don't mind dementia but I can't handle 5 of them and 5 acutely ill patients on my own. Med surg nurses are very rushed with different kinds of demands and are sometimes not able to be on top of everything. People mistake this for incompetence and laziness and it leads to a huge lack of respect for med- surg nurses. The doctors, pharmacists, transporters, physical therapists, OT, and social workers expect the nurse to work around THEIR schedule and workload and truly believe that we are there to make their life easier. I think that this causes the patients to suffer quite a bit. Example:I was doing a drug round for 20 patients on friday evening about an hour before pharmacy shuts. Had just had 3 come back from theatre (OR). I was the only RN on duty and was trying to get the meds done before dinner as I had 11 feeds and only myself and 2 care assistants (welcome to the UK). The pharmacist demanded that I drop what I am doing right now and be sure to order any meds that we might need over the weekend and don't have as pharmacy is only in from 0800-12 on a Saturday morning. Then they are closed for the weekend and back Monday AM. She didn't want the pharmacy staff to get overloaded Saturday morning with med requests because they wanted to get out on time and get home for lunch. WTF? I told her no. She wasn't happy. Bottom line was that the pharmacy tech should have done it but never got around to do it. I would have done it but at that time ( overwhelming med pass) pulling away from patient care would have had a bad effect on the patients and possibly my license. :trout: The relatives of your 6,8,10,or 20 patients want you to meet their requests on their schedule when it is convienent for them....to hell with how many other patients you have. They don't understand the whole cause and effect thing, the sheer amount of work that we have, and how important timing is with meds/labs/assesments etc. If they want to talk to you now rather than later because they have a hair appointment you had better do it and to hell with the effect this will have on your other patients. They don't understand nor do they care. You the nurse are the one who will be accountable when a patient crashes out and you miss it because you are off trying to please another patients family who wants a 1:1 servant. Med-surg is my specialty and I do love many aspects of it but other times I don't think I can take another day. EDIT: I just wanted to add that other floors have these problems but their patients are much more homogeneous. Our short stay surgical unit has twice the staff and the vast majority of their patients are self caring with ADL's and are on less meds. They are generally less complicated.

I have been busting my ass trying to get this thing signed by people. I want more than 200. I am sick of seeing one RN to 25 acute medical/surgical patients running her ass off whilst the patients and visitors complain that "nurses today just don't care" :angryfire Meanwhile tons of research is coming out that proves that patients suffer and die and have expensive complications due to poor staffing. The expensive complications outweigh the cost of retaining and recruiting staff. :trout: Then our managers are culling back over hundreds of staff and refusing to staff the wards and what do we hear from the public: "nurses don't care...too posh too wash.....don't care about hygeine these days" and "blah blah blah nurses cause mrsa" from the media twatarazzi. I don't know about you guys but at our hospital we run our asses off for 14 hours without a break. They put a new grad medical nurse on as the only trained for a surgical ward the other day following the closure of her ward. She had never been on this ward before. All hell broke loose that shift and she feels responsible. I came in on the late and had to clean a lot of that mess up and deal with loads of bullshit complaints whilst fresh post-ops got ignored. Where are matron, manager, and the rest of the them? They are sat in an office saying "sorry no staff". I didn't start this petition but I'm trying to get it signed and I am about to go medieval on the media as well. Got lots of projects starting. Notice has gone into the hospital regarding my resignation. I'd rather have my pin number thanks very much. Don't forget to send it on to anyone who might be interested in signing. Thanks to anyone who has signed. :balloons:

We all know how bad things are getting as a result of the deliberate short staffing by NHS management. Patients are getting terrible care. Nurses are leaving. UK nurses are working their behinds off and getting a really bad reputation because nursing care is deteriorating. Please look at this: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/nurseratios/

They may have saved Lincoln with today's medicine but he would have ended up as a vegetable at a short staffed Long Term Care facility. It may have helped if Lincoln's one and only "guard" who was supposedly guarding the theatre box hadn't taken off down to the bar and then sat downstairs. He left his post and was sitting at the back of the theatre drinking whisky.

A union was contacted but haven't heard anything back. The 1 staff nurse and 1 hca is starting to happen way too much. It's supposed to be at least 2 and 3 for that ward. But if there are people off sick or on leave they don't get replaced.

I'm American RN who has been working in an NHS hospital (north of england)for the last 5 years. As soon as my British husband's visa comes through and our house sells we are going to the USA at lightening speed. My acute medical ward, which also takes a high number of elderly care patients, is now staffing us with 1RN and 1 HCA to 21 patients on a weekday early shift. Our ward clerk left well over a year ago and they won't pay to replace her so it's a nightmare with the phone ringing non-stop. The patient's relatives are constantly abusive because their loved ones are not getting their hands held all day. Yeah, I'm getting the hell out of here and it's a shame because I love the UK. Would definitely stay if I wasn't a nurse. Oh yeah we have a few modern matrons at our hospital but I've never seen them. On Monday when I had 3 patients on insulin drips, one with chest pain, and one with a GI bleed plus 17 others with dementia who were wandering around crapping on the floors and there was only myself and an HCA; I really thought that this would finally be the day a Matron showed up to help. Wrong. But I'm sure that if I made an error due to being rushed off my feet and overwhelmed (and goddamn hungry after 12 hours non-stop) matrons would have been on my ass like flies to shite. The thing is that we are all trapped where we are due to the recruitment freeze.

Ain't it funny how all of the research that has concluded that thirmosal does not cause autism was funded and researched either directly or indirectly by the drug companies who made those vaccines. These guys knew years ago that the thirmosal in the vaccines could cause autism in kids who are genetically susceptible. These kids don't filter toxins out of their systems like other people do because of a chromosomal abnormality. The mercury in the vaccines is just too much for these special kids.

Is he autistic PeachPie? Then he cannot help it and there is really nothing that can be done about it. I hope to god that if you ever get some kind of brain injury or cognitive impairment that causes you to act that way that you are surrounded by people who are a bit more tolerant than you seem to be.

I would have asked the doctor why they hell he was so stupid as to show up and review the patient while the patient was in x-ray? Doctor: "Well I phoned the unit and told so and so that I needed patient in his room, how was I supposed to know that x-ray would show up at that same time" Me: "Well, how was I supposed to know that you were coming to see the patient at this time if no one told me? Are you telling me that I should always stop patients from going off of the floor for tests just in case a doctor might be coming into to see them and no one has passed on the message? Run that one by my manager if that's how you feel LOL. I then would have told him that if we wants to see the patient at a certain time that it is HIS responsibility to chase up the nurse and tell her that the patient needs to be in his/her room at such and such time. Passing info through a third party and hoping that it gets conveyed to the nurse is sloppy and lazy. If it was that important he should have asked to speak to the patient's nurse directly to avoid miscommunication. I would have had a field day with this guy. I can't handle people who yell at other people in front of an audience. Especially if it is unjustified. I have people like that for my dinner. If I need to have words with someone because I feel that they made a mistake I do it in private, I do it with kindess, and I don't advertise their mistake to the rest of our colleagues. This is my golden rule and people who don't adhere to it piss me off. Once a doctor on my floor verbally assaulted a new nurse in front of other staff. She had made a mistake but there was no need for him to humiliate her in front of other nurses and doctors. When I got done with him he wrote her a letter of apology. MTA if I ever get fired from a nursing job it will be for letting one of these jackasses have it.

I am a floor nurse who is used to getting slammed with multiple admissions at the worst times. But I don't think it is fair to get grumpy or flame the PACU or ER nurses about this. I have never been rude to them even when they are sending admissions as I am already drowning. I understand that they have no choice and that they are getting slammed as well. I realize that they aren't sending me patients just to piss me off and screw up my shift. Yes we med surg nurses are overwhelmed but that is not YOUR fault. There is no excuse for rudeness. Don't take any crap.