Misszilla

Some nurses where I work are trying to unionize. I’ve worked a union job that was non healthcare but never in healthcare. What can you union nurses tell me about working as a union nurse? The experience I have with a union in the past was all positive and good. Just curious if having a union in a hospital is good? Besides better pay, better or more affordable insurance and better retirement what else have you experienced as positive parts of having a nurses union at a hospital.

Thanks. We used to have assigned staff to do pre-op, assigned staff to do PACU, and assigned staff to do phase 2 staff, but we are all trained to do each area. Once the patient met criteria in PACU we would hand them left to a new nurse for phase 2 and we’d go back to Pacu to recover another patient. Several months or maybe a year ago they switched it up and now we don’t have assigned staff to do Pacu and phase 2. We recover a patient in Pacu and keep them to discharge. It becomes challenging doing it this way when you have a phase 2 patient wanting to go home but have a recovery patient that needs 1:1 while the airway is there. I am trying to get a feel for how other areas do it before I talk to my manager and head of anesthesia about it. Thought maybe if I ask here I would get some ideas I could suggest to help make it better.

Question for my PACU peri operative nurses. What is the flow of patients in your surgical setting? Specifically, once the patient comes out of the OR to PACU the nurse recovers the patient and once the patient meets criteria to go to phase 2 does the PACU nurse keep the patient to discharge him or her or do you hand that patient off to a Phase 2/discharge nurse?