Amazed*bythe*Mind

I'm a psych nurse on a 26 bed mixed psych unit (geri's, sub abuse, gen psych) I've been trying to figure out how to make things work a little smoother in regards to staffing assignments. I don't agree with the way it is now because we just split up the patients between the nurses and aides, so every patient does not have a nurse assigned to them. With 26 patients we generally have 3 to 4 RN's and 3 to 4 aides.With two of our nurses just passing meds and one nurse is charge. This leaves one for admits and DC's and everything else. With the way things are now the nurses are basically high payed aides. We spend our time doing 10 minute checks, passing meals, supervising shower times, cleaning patients up,etc. I feel every patient should have a nurse assigned to them every shift as well as an aide. That way we could have time to do our one to one's treatment plans, etc. Any ideas or thoughts on this? Let me know how you guys staff your units, I think that would help alot. Thanks