ICUEDMursenary

If I recall correctly, there is. Thanks for all the information. I have been filing ADO's every shift for the last 3 months. Only 2 shifts of the last 3 months have we been staffed where our charge nurse has no patients and can provide relief for breaks/meals -- and both of those times it has been our supervisor in charge. Last shift, I called another critical care unit who had an unencumbered charge (miracle) and they came and relieved 2 of us for lunch, the other 3 were out of luck. I'll bring this up and the next union meeting and see what we can do. At this point most of my ADO's say what supervisor I informed, what they said and when they said it. It's always "Informed ___ @ this time, they stated 'no units have unencumbered charge, no break relief available.'" One problem is one of the ICU's has had a mass exodus every couple months for the past year. So, if we have an unencumbered charge, they float one of us down there to "put them in ratio" (they call it "in ratio," but charge nurse is still encumbered and no break relief nurses) and then we have an encumbered charge and no break relief, too. Management keeps pushing that we all take our meals and breaks anyway, so basically they understaff by 2 RN's and have no financial repercussions. to add icing to the cake, our DON said "Oh for heaven's sake, nothing can happen in the 30 minutes you're at lunch." My pancakes are flipping... Theoretically. But they also are the ones that negotiated a contract that doesn't allow for work stoppages and the CNA's are all gone at this hospital for the last 2 years.

I've exhausted my google resources. I work at a facility that has been ignoring staffing ratios for the last few months in all the units. Us nurses have been getting ran through a meat grinder the entire time. We've been missing meals and breaks (we work in CA with a union) and now management is threatening punishment for missing meals and breaks when we're out of ratio. The Director of Nursing said "nothing can go wrong in 30 minutes" and encouraged us ICU nurses to go to lunch despite leaving a charge nurse with 3-5 ICU patients. The other night when I had a 1:1 patient, they sent me a 2nd patient regardless of my objection and my 1:1 pulled their central line out. Crisis was averted, but narrowly. Anyway, sorry for all of the ancillary information. I'm wondering if any CA nurses specifically have any experience with reporting an employer for this behavior (to the state?). Reporting a facility to the CA Dept. of Health entails including patient information rather than it being related to a staffing ratio problem. The final straw came when a member of management brought up "time management" problems on the end of staff nurses due to recent overtime and missed meals/breaks. They're actually blaming the staff nurses for time management problems when we're out of ratio or have an encumbered charge with no one to relieve us. Any insight would be appreciated. I'm at my wits end