nw31705

Exactly, what they fell to realize is half of us is working for free because 10hrs or 26hrs of overtime my checks are the same and I end up owing the IRS for money I didn't even get to spend.They donskt want to do the work but they force us.

Our cases began and seem as though they never end.The funny thing is we only have one shift.We are all tired and bured out.We come in, at seven and start at eight.We have 13 rooms on the average we do about 25 cases a day.For some reason at 1530 when then shift ends the board looks like it did that morning and we are expected to stay while the managers that added on all the cases go home and rest their feet.We are on call at least 1 day a week and maybe assigned to stay late one day.If we are there all night we have to work the next day.I have worked 26hrs the last 3wks my night on call with only 3-4hrs of sleep b/t the time I left and had to come back for the next day.I do not get breaks and have to beg to go pee.We have policies in place about add ons but they are not followed because the surgeons just operate late as they want to doing elective cases like a microdisc at 700pm with the call team (scary)what if an emergency occurs.I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.My managers are so lazy and unfair they don't have a clue.they ask you to come in for an early case, then you do not get a break and last lunch which may be at 2 or 3.I recently was so burned out I charted on the wrong patient.It did not matter to them as long as I was at work and they did not have to unglue themselves from their desk.This is really getting old and dangerous.Why does it take all day to do 25 Cases.When we complain surgeons often say "we use to do it' well that's why we had so many wrong site surgeries back then.they were too tired to function.there has got to be a labor law against this.We.Are putting ourselves and the patent at risk.

This is true according to jacho the pharmacy has to fill the pumps now.All the hospitals here are doing it now.

Everyone in our OR has some job to do other than nursing and scrubbing.We have our own rooms and the fridges we are assigned to.We do it all ourselves.Believe me it is a burden on us but it makes our work space more comfortable each month we have to sign off that we have done our chores like little children.

I Do agree we have the same problem and it is very scary.We almost had an occurence where an emergency did happen while a breast reduction was still going at 12 that started that afternoon.When tragedy strikes I wonder who they r going to point fingers at.Our staff is so worn out because we work all day and all night then the next day.I believe they think we are robots.When will the madness stop.

That is a good idea. This place is just not open to change. I am doing an inservice tomorrow about this and hopefully it will give them some kind of insight i'm talking about the sheets.as for the beds, yes they do get them all because that's when the staff has time to get them and our neurologist want do surgery if we don't have beds out side the room for all their patient's even the ACD&F. They take up all the room. We are now storing beds in holding after the firdt cases start because of space. Also do ya'll have mop buckets outside the rooms also. The green towels are the option they chose because they are lazy. I don't use them I keep sheets in my room I hide them and I do not allow my patients to be moved with a green towel that's a NO NO.

That indeed is true staff short and it's not the bed that they are lying on that I have the issue with it's the green towel that is the problem.Yes I would rather place fractures and lumbar cases and such on a bed, but as you said yourself with the limited staff who's going to come take the green towel from under the buttocks of the 80 year patient whom we've just finished doing a debridement on her foot from under her butt so we want have to later debride that too. I'm sure you know and understand where I am coming from. I use to be a supervisor in a nursing home and we had this one patient that if you rubbed on her skin too hard it tore. Those are the kind of things that keep me up at night not the bed that they are lying on. That is the least of my concerns. As i am sure you do know medicaid and medicare is no longer paying for hospital acquired pressure sores. The person in the above response mentioned they remove the sheet in recovery, well that does not happen where I work. So therefore if they are transfered onto thier bed post-op with a green towel it stays until God knows when verses if they are put on a stretcher. I can rest at not knowing that when they were transpoted up stairs to the floor they had to move to their bed and that little green towel that they love so much was left behind and that's why you take a roller with you when you take a patient to the floor. I've been a floor tech before and had help with patient's coming from the floor I know how hard it can be, but there is a solution for everything, but #1 we should be concerned with the benefit of our patient's not with the bed or the stretcher. The big hole they might have in thier behind should be the main concern. Just the other day one of our nurses had to transport patient's for recovery because we are so short staffed and she asked me have you ever took a patient to the floor by yourself pushing a bed with an IV pole. She said she that she was going to have to take the patient back to surgery she hit so many walls. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. I could give you many many senarios were bringing a bed to the or for all inpatients can be a saftey issue. I'm still trying to figure out what we're going to do with all the beds before JACHO COMES SINCE ALL THE FIRE EXITS ARE BLOCKED EVERYDAY WITH BEDS.

I do agree we do what we have to do, but i feel that depending on how much room you have in the OR bringing the beds down can be accomplished.Some days recovery have already sent for the beds and there is no room to even put the stretcher the patient came off of. We have a serious issue with space. Jacho says we have to have everything on one side of the hall but we barely have room to put things on both. Where i use to work it was against policies to bring a bed to th OR. If a patient came on a bed by the end of the case there was a stretcher outside the roomand that hopital has 19 rooms and it is pretty spacey. They said it was for safety reasons and that stretcher were easier to transport in the event that a true emergency did occur and the deparment had to be evacuated and it also saves space. I don't know about where you work but half of our beds don't even roll straight they have a mind of there own, and the beds we have can't even hardly fit through the doors you have to turn them side to side while you are steadily bumping the wall with the patient on it. It is realy a pain. Sorry I know it is much easier for PACU but all of the nurses in my OR hate it. I've been a patient in the OR 4 times for open abdominal surgery and I had to move to my bed where I had my procedures done and to tell you the truth I can't really remember it. Well it looks like ya'll have a good system I wish we could work out something better.

I am new to the sight.I really need help because I am stessing.I've been in the OR now for almost 10years I started out as a scrub tech. I am now a RN. I started at a new hopital last year and when I got there I noticed they did the strangest thing. Whe they transferred patient's to the stretcher post-op they wrapped a sterile green towel around the roller. I was just wonder if anyone else ever seen this and is it a good idea. I don't believe it is because those towels or ruff and they get left under the patient's and this can irritate the skin in elderly people and began the process of skin breakdown. Also I believe you should always have a draw sheet. Well I am doing an inservice tomorrow on this to give people some outlook on this matter but I am having a very hard time coming up with documentation. I did find some information about pressure ulcers and flat wrinlke free padded surfaces to prevent ulcers. By the way the also bring all the beds from the patient rooms to the OR to transport them to recovery and put them outside the doors if they are inpatient's. We really don't have that much space and the hallways are full of beds instead of stretchers i've never seen this before either. Recovery says it's easier on them and the patient's if they don't have to move. Maybe back cases yes but for a lavh that's insane. if I had to code a surgery patient in recovery I believe I would want them on a stretcher. This whole green towel thing really bugs me because these patient's are not being put on stretchers they're on they're beds who knows when the tech on the floor may remove that towel from under them. Hve you ever sat a a towel for a long time, it hurts doesn't it. I am open to suggestions. HELP HELP HELP.................