night owl

WOW! That was mighty powerful and it made me sad too. If I knew how to make one of those videos, I'd use the exact same song only set the pace to Long Term Care showing the old folk lying in bed with no one to check on them for hours, the med nurse in and out quickly so she can get to the next 30 residents, residents sitting in their w/c's all day with people passing by not even bothering to say "hello" or "have a nice day" when they leave, a pt having a nightmare and no one going in the room to comfort him and the list is endless. Yes it's sad, it's very sad and it's hard to make a difference when there's not enough staff to make that difference.

Don't you just love these people? My NM has a doctorate in nursing, but most of the time she doesn't have a bit of sense and it's always her way or no way. One time I said to her, "Don't you feel like writing a book or something???" I just don't get how some people feel that they can try to walk all over you.

When my mom was hospitalized with CHF and after receiving IM Lasix, she needed the bed pan so badly and asked the med nurse to hand her the bedpan from her bedside cabinet. The nurse said, "It's not my job" and walked away with her med cart. Mom had to wet the bed because she had no one to get her the bed pan. Believe me she wasn't incontinent and said she was never so humiliated in all her life. She never told me about it until she was home after about three weeks because she knew I would have had that nurses job!!! :angryfire What kind of nurse would have the gall to even say that to a patient??? Please, get over yourself!

Call the "pantie police", they'll know what to do!

:icon_hug: I'm happy for you too. Best wishes!

At our facility on nights, our UM expects 75% of the residents washed dressed and OOB for breakfast by 0645-0700 and are all expected to be fed by the time day shift arrives at 0730. Our census is 60 when we have a full house, so only a handful are left in bed. Approx 10 residents take themselves to the dining room and the remaining residents eat on the unit either in their rooms or in the dayroom. We usually work with 4 CNAs and 3 nurses.

:yelclap: THANK YOU! :yelclap:

These are absolutely brilliant! Thank you!

I've always had a fear of vomit. In my 30 years in nursing, it has never gotten any better. My biggest fear is having a noro virus run through my facility. It happened about 4 years ago and I'll tell you, it was a living HELL! After day two I had to call out sick not because I was sick, but because I couldn't stand it any more. People were vomiting everywhere and I hope to God it never happens again! When my kids were small and they would get sick, my husband had to take over because I was useless. As a nurse, that's pretty bad and I was ashamed of myself, but thank God for my husband and my savior.

My new pet peeve...people pouring lactulose or any syrupy med over the computer keyboard! When you go to type in your code to log on it looks like this...BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB because the keys stick! I can't stand it!!! Why can't they pour away from the keyboard??? A lot of times we need a whole new keyboard. When we get one, the same thing happens not too far down the road! I placed a sign, "Please do not pour over the keyboard." t.y. But to no avail...:smackingf I give up.

Some do get incentive awards if they keep the budget down... nice big fat bonus checks! But to get them for not providing basic comfort needs??? I will silence myself before it's too late!

That's criminal!!! These people should be locked up! God bless the staff...they are truly angels of mercy!

Hmmm, I KNOW we need time clocks at our facility. We just might be the last place on earth who doesn't have them and I know it would solve many of our problems. Too many problems with people leaving early and still getting paid, people coming in late and not getting docked...it's cRaZy and so ridiculously unfair.

I sure agree to this. Where is the professionalism?

We had a CNA that would sleep every night, snoring louder than any pt. The supervisor who seek him out to ask him if he could do overtime never saying anything to him about the sleeping. Finally she wised up. Caught him sleeping again one night, woke him up and warned him. The second night she asked me to come witness him sleeping and her waking him up. She wrote him up and he was suspended for a week. We tried to tell her years prior to his sleeping, but nothing was ever done. I'm not sure what suddenly provoked her after all these years to finally do something about it. Jacho coming any day maybe and it'll look like they're doing something about certain problems? I don't know. Just before they came the last time a girl was fired for sleeping. It was her third warning, but any time between Jacho visits nothing was ever done. Just a thought.

That's why I love the Bar Code medication Administration which is all computerized. We always complained about it, but it really is the best system. The pt's wrist band is scanned to make sure they are the correct pt who will to recieve the medications that come up on the screen then we scan the meds as we give them. At the end of a med pass we print out what they call a "missed med" sheet and all the meds that were NOT scanned that were due during the med pass will show up on the missed medication sheet so you must go back and correct the missed med. We print a final missed med sheet before we go home. If there are still any missed meds you MUST go back and correct them whether it was HELD, REFUSED, or GIVEN before you go home. We have zero missed medications every time. We also print out a PRN effectivness sheet which means every PRN that was given that DOES NOT have an effectiveness along with it will only show up on the sheet. Again we must go back and add the effectiveness before leaving. It's a very expensive system, but it's well worth every penny and in my opinion the system goes above and beyond pt safety, which is what every facility strives for. If you can afford it, by all means you should get it. You won't regret investing the facilities money on this system one bit.

It seems that our facility thinks Jacho wants us to use the kardex and go through each pt, one by one with age, Dx's blah, blah, blah which is absolutely crazy. I can understand doing this in a hospital setting where pts come and go all the time with changing conditions, but in LTC? I don't see the need unless maybe you're giving a report to a new nurse that's working in a certain district or hallway and wants to know every detail or maybe to a floater, but we always used a census sheet and went down the line like everyone else. And that illegal report book? I really miss it. I think it was the best way to communicate from shift to shift and from day to day. Why is it illegal?

I am very curious on how everyone gives report. DO you all sit with the kardex and read off the names of course, age, diagnosis etc. etc. etc for each resident??? For our 60 residents, this takes us almost 45 minutes. Can someone please enlighten me to the purpose of all this. I would absolutely appreciate it.

This IS funny. The other day after the residents had breakfast, they were sitting in their geri-chairs/w/cs and snoozing. I said to the lady standing next to me, "Look at them all sleeping like babies... I can't wait for those days!" Lord knows we will certainly have earned the right to sit and sleep or watch TV. Where's that remote??? Better days are ahead! :biere:

And you weren't able to explain anything to them? Or they just didn't want to hear it? To me that's just crazy. You should have at least been given a chance to speak; you have that right or don't we anymore??? Be assured, I would have made myself heard whether or not they wanted to hear it especially if I knew that I didn't do anything wrong and the whole thing was a set up. I'll agree though with that kind of work environment, you're better off getting out of there.

I have a family and I have kids who are grown now, but for 30 years I've done my share of working the holidays at the same facility. Last year I was off Christmas so this year I'm working it. I worked Thanksgiving last year and this year. I requested New Year's off, but yesterday I found out that I'm working. So this year I get no holidays with my family. I can't even complain to anyone about it because our UM resigned yesterday and the assistant UM is on vacation until after the first. So you all enjoy your holidays off with your families. At least my check will look real good, but money can't really replace being with my family on the holidays.

We have internet access, but it's limited. We have a coworker who karaoke sings on ksolo.com and has a beautiful Luther Vandross type voice. We listened to him on our down time and after a month or so they blocked him. :icon_lol:

Exactly my suggestion. When you place your loved one in a nursing home you expect that he/she will receive the care they need. When you get the eyerolling from the DON of all people, that's a red flag for me and my cue to get him out of there and into another facility.

Our supervisors aren't allowed to ask, "What's wrong with you?" when you call in sick. If you're sick, you're sick. It's no one's beeswax what's wrong with you. Only calling in with an emergency is on a need to know basis. Get this though...If I'm due in at 12MN and I call in at 2330 saying my car won't start and there's no way I can get it fixed at this time and I have no other way to get in, I'm only granted 2 hours of emergency leave and 6 hours of sick leave. Does that sound right to you? Im not sick, my car is!!!

I bought a pair of New Balance sneakers that are the best sneaker I ever bought and I hope they never stop making them as long as I'm working. Check out the shoe mall .com When I bought them they were on sale for $66, but they normally run $99. They are the 925 series and if you have fat feet like moi, you can get them in EEE or wider I believe. Soon I will need a new pair. Merry Christmas to me. :)