flymomrn

Do you fill out injury reports for every minor injury you or another staff sustains at work? At my job they have a notice that we are to fill out an injury form every time staff gets injured "every injury, every time, no matter how small". Most people don't bother to fill out the form...it is a pain in the neck and it often seems pointless for a minor injury. We have a resident who has fallen multiple times over the last several weeks. He is a large man who weighs approx. 250 pounds and he can not help us get him up from the floor. We do not have a lift that will help us get him up off the floor (we have 2 lifts for transfers from bed to chairs, but they won't go to the floor). So, this weekend he fell again. Four of us lifted him off the floor and got him safely on to the bed...but one of the aides said "I can't lift him if he falls again as I have injured my shoulder lifting him 3 times tonight" and I strained my lower back. At the end of the shift, I filled out the staff injury forms for both of us and turned them in with the note that neither of us anticipated needing treatment other than the cold compress and Motrin used at the time, but the the forms were filled out per policy. I also mentioned that no matter how carefully we try to use good body mechanics, it is impossible to prevent injuries when lifting a resident from the floor. I got a call from HR the next day asking how I was doing, and letting me know that due to the injury forms being filled out, the administration had authorized the purchase of a lift that will let us pick residents up from the floor. Nursing had been asking for one for quite some time, but the injury reports gave them the ammunition they needed to get one approved, as just 1 workman's comp claim would cost more than the lift. I was thrilled to learn that writing up the injury forms for these minor injuries helped to prevent any major injuries. This is how things should work, but seldom do in real life.

Any time I have to work a shift short, I always write a notice to management that the staffing was not what it should be to ensure patient safety and that I am taking my assignment on protest and that they need to ensure that staffing is safer in the future. I send this email before I even start working (I always come in 15-20 minutes early and look at staffing first before I clock in, so this is done before I start work) I work my shoes off to protect my patients and give them the best possible care, even when the unit is severely short staffed. It doesn't help with the staffing that day, but it may help down the road. I also make sure that if any incidents do happen (like falls) that I make sure to point out if the staffing is short.

I love the saying "A person who saves one life is a hero...a person who saves a hundred lives is a nurse".

Ok, we have all known someone who calls themselves a "nurse" when they are an MA, GNA, tech, etc. What do you do when someone calls themselves a nurse and you know/suspect that they are not? Do you call them on it? Point out that they are breaking the law? Ask them what nursing school they graduated from? Ask if they are an RN or LPN/LVN? Or, do you just let it slide? Do you correct patients, doctors who call aides or techs "nurse"?

I feel your pain. I suffered from PCOS for many years and went through 3 1/2 years of infertility treatments without ovulating once. I then got divorced, went on Atkins diet, started working out and lost 90 pounds. I started ovulating naturally, and conceived with donor sperm on my first attempt. I had a lot of problems during that pregnancy with gestational diabetes and other issues, but gave birth to a healthy amazing baby boy. I remember going through infertility treatments and how painful it was to be around babies, pregnant women and new moms. I took care of a baby who had down syndrome and kept getting admitted for failure to thrive. The mom was young and I had to admit this precious baby and his mom was sitting there on her cell phone saying "Well, you need to pick me up ASAP. I am not sitting here with him all day." I wanted to hurt her and steal the baby. I would have been happy with this baby, even with down syndrome and to see his mom so callous, just broke my heart. Nothing will make it easy to deal with L+D or peds, but you just have to push yourself to get through it and allow yourself to cry. After I had my son, I had gastric bypass surgery and lost 200 pounds, and have had 2 great daughters since then. I no longer have any problems with PCOS. Best of luck to you.

I agree completely. I prefer using Nurse Practitioners over doctors in most cases. My husband had a head injury recently and saw to doctors in the local ER who just dismissed our concerns and sent him home. The third ER visit we went to a better hospital, and the Nurse Practitioner who saw him did a much better job and took the time to address our concerns and got him the help he needed.

So, there is a meeting today about the annonymous letter about the meal break issue. The facility insists they are in the right and that they did not give permission for the letter to be placed in the inter-office mailboxes and that is a violation of policy as stated in the employee handbook. So, I will go to the meeting and hope that I can say enough to support our rights without being branded the trouble maker and getting fired. Should be fun. :spbox:

Next time you get one of those young guys with urinal issues, you should tell them that if they can't use the urinal without help, you would be happy to insert a foley catheter into their member...or that you understand that guys with small memberes often have that problem. No man wants to think they have a small member or to get a tube shoved up their member.

Thanks Kona2. In the state of Maryland, they do not need to give us a meal break, but they are to pay us for all time that is worked and can not deduct a 30 minute meal break if we are not fully relieved of all duties. I have no problem with not being relieved by another nurse so that I can have a bona fide meal break, as it is a small nursing home and it would be hard for them to have another nurse to come in at 2am to give me a break. I just want to be paid for my time since they have made an issue of what we do during our meal break. They can't have it both ways...they can't deduct the 30 minutes of pay and then dictate what we can and can't do on our break. We have all allowed it, but I am encouraging all of the nurses to start filling out "no lunch forms" for every shift. Unfortunately, it seems that the other nurses are not going to back me in any way and I am already getting in trouble. Nothing has been said about the letter and break deal, but a minor error is being made into a bigger problem and it is clear that they are going to start nit-picking everything I do until they can get rid of me for a reason other than the break issue. I do have a copy of my recent evaluation which was glowing, and I have had no write-ups or warning prior to now. This is one reason it is important to keep evaluations and all communications from work. I am a bit anal about keeping notes and documenting everything that I do.

Thanks Kona2. Not likely to get a union where I work. I have been involved with a couple of nurse lobby events and have connections with the NNU + SEIU + ANA. My husband works for a union and I have been a member of HERE union years ago as a waitress. I have not been as much of an advocate for nursing issues lately, but I am motivated again. Luckily, my husband is very supportive of my standing up for my rights.

I am likely to be fired soon here. My job has been firing people right and left since the new administrator started. I know that I am putting my job on the line by standing up for our rights, but I don't care any more. I am tired of us nurses being taken advantage of and even getting in trouble for working out on our meal breaks, even when the nurse had the phone and pager in her pocket and was only 20 feet off the unit. The break room where we are supposed to eat is further away than the gym. We have put up with letting them deduct time from our check when we are not really free of duties and I for one am not going to put up with it any more. I am going to start filing out "no lunch forms" every time that I work and am the only nurse in the building or not fully relieved of duties. We all have to start standing up for ourselves on these little things. It really does add up to a lot of money that we are being cheated out of over the course of a year.

Recently, I was called in to the DON's office and asked if I ever work out at the gym on my lunch break. I said that I hadn't, but have thought about doing it as I need to lose a few pounds and our company has been encouraging us to get healthier. I was then informed that one of the nurses had been doing so and that the floor nurses are not allowed to work out on our meal break or be off the unit for more than a few minutes during our shift. I seldom leave the unit except to go to the vending machine, and always have the cordless phone and pager with me at all times. I work at a small nursing home where there is only one floor nurse working and after 4pm and on weekends, there is only one nurse in the building. We all get 30 minutes deducted from our pay, even though we all know that we can not leave the building and need to be available to assist residents at all times, and we have all accepted that for years without complaint. On the rare occations that one of us fills out a "no lunch" form, we are paid for that time, but have to justify why we couldn't get a break. In light of the DON/facility making an issue of what we can and can not do while on our "lunch break", we have all been discussing that it is not fair or legal for us to not be paid for our "lunch break" if we are not free of responsibility for the residents. So, I have written up a demand letter to HR stating that per Fair Labor Standards Act and State Labor Regulations, that unless we are completely free of all responsiblities and able to take our 30 minute break where and how we please, then we must be paid for that time. If we contact the state, we would be entitled to up to 2 years of back pay plus interest for those unpaid meal breaks, but we are just demanding that we be paid for our breaks from now on and liquidated damages for back pay. I know it seems crazy to fight for 30 minutes of pay, but it really adds up. That can be over $5,000.00 a year for a full time nurse. I don't know about you, but I could use that money. The facility made it an issue and now we are going to make sure that they pay us for our breaks as required by law. I know that there may be (ok, will surely be) some trouble for standing up for our rights, but the facility can not legally terminate an employee (even in an at-will state) for demanding to be paid for hours worked of for filing a complaint with the state. That being said, I am writing the demand on behalf of all of the nurses and signing it "The Floor Nurses" as I do not want to be the only one putting my name to the demand letter. I would love it if all of us would sign the demand, but I think that just writing it in behalf of all of us will work. I am going to put a copy of the demand letter in all of the nurses' boxes (including mine) so they know what is going on. I attached the relevant supporting documentation for everyone and gave a deadline of June 16th for them to make the change and pay the liquid damages amount requested. Everyone cross your fingers that everything goes well for us.