TikiRN

They said she was pulled for a normal random. Another nurse had to go too. This hospital randomly pulls employees for random drug screens. A lot of hospitals do that. TikiRN

I am not sure if it was the state or the hospital. I do know the hospital includes it in their drug screens. They did tell us in orientation that if we got called back for a drug screen for some reason and tested above a certain level then we better have a designated driver, otherwise they have to turn us in for DUI. That makes sense. I do remember one nurse saying that she ( the nurse who was fired) requested a BAL but they refused saying her urine test was so high that they didn't need one. TikiRN

Thanks Trauma for the article. But I am still vague on how much is left in the system after 10 hours. True the not be able to renew the license for state taxes. I miss spoke about losing it. But either way you can't work. God help any nurses who drink Nyquil before going to bed. That stuff has 10% alcohol in it. Jeez Beer is only 6%. TikiRN

Hi All, I have a question about drinking. They now include ETOH screening with random drug screenings for nursing in my state. And I know they do it in a few other states as well. I know of a nurse who was recently screened and came up positive for ETOH and was fired. She swears she drank the night before she came to work but not that day of her shift. This was a urine screen by the way, not a blood alcohol content. Now my question is how long does it stay in your system? I mean I do drink on my day off. 2-3 drinks, sometimes more if I am fishing or enjoying the outdoors with friends, BBQ etc ( maybe 5-6 but those times are rare). I DO NOT DRINK on the job or before I go in. Sometimes I do have one drink before I go to sleep. I know it sounds like I am a boozer but I am not. This has me really paranoid. I mean it is totally legal. And it is my time off. And I have at least 10 hours between my last drink and when I go to work. If I drink at 9:00 pm and go work at 7:00 am that is 10 hours. Is this illegal? Anyone have any experience with this? I swear nursing gets more restrictive, you lose your license for a DUI ( no I have never had one, I don't drink and drive) or if you don't pay your state taxes and now this. I bet they don't do any of the above to Dr's or Lawyers. Just seems unfair to me. Thanks, TikiRN

Thanks all for your input. It is interesting that when they say " it's the norm everywhere else" then they mention some hospitals somewhere are all doing this (always vague). We do have monitor techs. Thank the Lord, we used to use the pagers. ( Nightmare!) I forgot our techs do the stocking on nights too. And they have to strip the beds before housekeeping will even touch the room. The MD's are difficult to get a hold of on nights. And as for discharging a pt. We have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, fax or call in any meds, and then get them out the door. They are monitoring our discharge time and want it down to 30 minutes from the time the MD writes the order. HA HA HA. Right. That is always fun when you have a set of sheaths to pull, one just got back from PACU, the other needs a pain pill, blah blah blah, you know how it goes. Someone else mentioned about getting rid of older nurses. I noticed that they are the ones getting wriiten up more and two have been fired, or pushed out. Another weird thing that they are doing that I know is totally wrong but I don't know how to fix it. Maybe I should start another thread.... Is that we have computer documentation, you give a pain med or have a PCA, the follow up documentation is 1 hour and 2 hours. IF we are even 1 minute late in getting into the room ( usually longer) and we are off on the assessment. We are called at home to come back in and "fix it" In other words, Lie and say you were in there. Same thing on restraints. I am not saying that these are wrong rules, in fact I often think for PCA's and retraints it should be more often. But the truth is we are so busy that there is no way in hell we can get back in there in that time frame. Yes, sometimes I can, but usually not. And no there is no one to cover for lunchs. Just the other RN's. We go two at a time. Which is actually an improvement. We used to not get lunchs very often. So that is better. I actually heard my Team Leader say, "You are not 'entitled' to breaks, only lunch. Anyway thanks for the input. By the way this is a small midwest rural community 68,000. 300 bed hospital. And the CEO makes over 800,000 a year. No, I am no kidding, it came out in the newspaper, what he and the Dr's were making compared to a large city near us. Anyway, thanks again Tiki

Hi all new to the forum and need some input I work on a very busy CVTU unit 48 beds. 98% full most of the time. When I started working there 10 years ago the ratio was 3:1 Now the "new" managment is pushing for 5:1 Tonight was very short staffed and 2 RN's had 6 pt's each. The rest had 5. They tell us that we are below that national norm for a step down unit. That we need to start taking more pt's cause that is what every one else is doing. Here is how it is set up. We have no anciallry support on days or nights. Our techs are responsible for passing trays, picking up trays, transporting pt's (no transport in this facility) Ambulate all the pt's. No phlebotomy. RN's do all lab draws. We finally got an EKG tech from 8:00 to 2300. The techs used to do that too. We take every gtt except for Nipride, Levophed, and Diprovan. We pull arterial sheaths on the floor. Which takes 2 RN's about 30 minutes. We do cardioversions on the floor. There are a lot of admissions on this unit. Day shift RN's may go through 7 pt's a shift. We get CABG's 18 to 24 hours post op. With chest tubes still in. Some even have temp pacers. About half are on gtts. Dopamine or Amiodarone/Cardizem. Then there are the post op Thoro's and vascular pt's. That come straight from PACU. Now I could see it is we had more techs, or ancillary support. Or if they stopped doing so many procedures on the floor and kept those in the Cath lab. Not only are they pushing for the higher ratio but now they are big on "Corrective Action." That means do more, go faster, but don't make any mistakes or you are written up for it. We have a HUGE turn over in nurses. We can't even hardly get the new ones off orientation before they transfer out. Is this really the national norm? How does this really stack up to other step-down units out there. Thanks in advance for your input Tiki