caregiver11

I am curious, I have read a lot of things about the union and I want to know how long nurses had to wait to get a raise during negogations? Also do you continue with flexibilityof your schedule. For instance, where I work you can request your days to work, if something comes up and you need to switch a day you have the flexibilty to switch with another nurse. Another question that I have is: If you have a nurse that you have safety issues with what happens? Example I worked with a nurse that was unsafe, she had a patient on blood sugars every hour and would administer 10 units of regular insulin every hour to cover a blood sugar while the patient was NPO. Needless to say the patient went into an unresponsive hypoglycemic episode. The nurse was counseled and had to verify insulin administration with a specificed nurse prior to giving. She choose not to do this and repeated basically the same action that had negative outcomes on the patient. She was terminated for unsafe practice. Can this happen in an union? I would really like to know because we are considering a union.

I have found in 14 years of nursing that it depends upon the size of the hospital. For instance I worked at a large hospital with over 300 beds and it is considered one of the leading heart hospitals. We had 4 telemetry units, and we would take lidocain, procainimide, amiodarone, and nitro. We would titrate nitro to chest pain or systolic B/p up to 100 mcg. It was common for us to get troponins that were elevated. Now I am at a community hospital with 219 beds and when I first arrived the progressive care unit could only take nitro if it was less than 10mcg and required not titration. We still take elevated troponins. Elevated enzymes and nitro can be managed on a telemetry floor if you have heart cath lab available that can provide interventions to prevent further heart damage. The philosphy is: once the vessel is unclogged your risk are significantly reduced.

On a 32 bed med/sug tele unit the hppd are 7.0. In contrast on a 40 bed PCU unit the hppd are 8.2

This issue has been brought to light due to JCAHO recommendation on medication safety. Check out the JCAHO website.