9moreyears

I had a patient just this week who was having bladder spasms so bad he required robinul every 4 hours. After I taped his foley, suprise, they just stopped!

Thanks for all your comments and support. Advertising for more nurses this weekend. Hoping and praying I can keep enough nurses that I have to train the new ones. I do not feel as if I am doing a good job and I don't quite know how to fix that. I am not sure what help to ask for. As far as agency, our nurse recruiter says maybe somebody coming, but the background check for them is formidable.

Hello! I am a new nurse manager in a step down unit. Since I started, we have been chronically short staffed. The hospital has been unable to keep staff members with the average time of work (discounting one who came with the building as she says) is 1-2 years. I know the reason nobody wants to stay there. The staffing is terrible! We are supposed to have 2 RN's, 3 LPN's, and 2 Aides for 16 patients. I do not have enough people to staff for that many beds! I have enough people to keep maybe 2 RN's on most days (Including myself 4 out of 5 days), and 1-2 LPN's on most day shifts with only one on the afternoon and night shifts, and hardly one aide. They will not advertise for LPN's or CNA's as they say they will be inundated with applicants! (duh! um isn't that what we want?) They have advertised for RN's, and I do have 2 RN's on orientation but I have lost 1 full time and many part time RNs since I started in January. Most days we work short staffed, and if we happen to have a low census our nurses get pulled! We work crazy all the time and then they wonder why we have the highest error rate in the hospital. I am hoping things will get better, in the mean time, I need to find a way to help the error rate, keep the staff that I have, and increase our staffing ratio to where it is comfortable for our nurses to work. ANY suggestion would be welcome. Oh I already requested that we cut our beds until our staffing is up, and was refused.