dinorn

We have these same problems in our Women's services dept. Our hospital is very big on patient satisfaction. If we have a family complaining they want a comp tray, extra chairs, or even an extra bed in their room, the nurses will tell them it is not allowed but if they complain to our nurse director, they end up getting fruit baskets, complimentary movie tickets, comp trays with every meal, and we have even moved them to a suite so that they can have a room large enough to have an extra bed in it. So we end up looking like the bad guys because we try to play by the rules, while our nurse manager keeps reminding us that we want our patients to be VERY SATISFIED!

i work in a closed unit (women's services)we do not get pulled to other floors. we are cross trained to l&d,postpartum,nursery and these are the only units we are required to work. we do take call 2 to 3 times a month.i have worked open units in the past and was dissatisfied being pulled to med/surg or telemetry. being on call a few times each month is well worth not being pulled outside my specialty area. we do not get paid for being on call unless we are called in then we get an extra $50 for each shift we work and can work a max of 16 hours. the call schedule usually works out well and our nurse manager tries very hard to find coverage so that she does not have to utilize the call schedule. you would need to have your core staff otherwise you would be taking call more frequently.

on our postparum/gyn surg unit we often get overflow from other areas. we are a "clean" unit, therefore our hospital policy states we can not accept infectious patients. we NEVER accept a pt requiring isolation. our administration is aware of this policy however there have been occasions when they have tried to give us an infectious pt, we also ask about the pt's lab results if available (wbc's, cultures...)and will refuse a patient who is infectious. there have been a few times when i have had to call our nurse manager in the middle of the night to get her support. if we have a patient on our unit who we find to be infectious after admission then we transfer that pt to another unit. our infection control nurse and nurse manager are both very supportive of this policy and all us nurses do our best to enforce the policy.being consistent and firm about infection control has reinforced the policy and administration realizes we will speak up if we feel they are going against policy. sometimes if the other units are filled, administration will transfer clean cases to our unit in order to open a bed for an infectious pt to be admitted to another unit. i would suggest talking with your infection control nurse to develop a hospital policy on infection control on your unit, and be consistent in that policy.good luck!