psych, staffing

[sue antle]

Hello everyone,

I am a psych nurse and I have noticed a serious problem in the past couple of years.

Many nurses have lost their jobs, and the hospitals feel they can float the psych nurses to other areas, that may be short on staff. I feel this is a potential danger to manage a psych. unit under staffed.Psych staff and patients are @ a high risk of injury or death.

I feel others must be in the same situation and I would like to have some ideas , and thoughts re. this matter.

[LindasueRN]

I am also a psych nurse, and a travel nurse so I have had many experiences at many different places. It seems that short staffing happens all over and I agree that this is dangerous. It seems that managers don't take notice until a serious crisis happens and costs them money (lawsuit, injuries, death, etc.) And sometimes even then nothing is done about the actual reason it happened. I have had to float before to a med/surg floor and felt very vulnerable and uncomfortable. Although I have a background in med/surg (7 years ago!) and I have had small tastes of medical nursing in psych, I had not been oriented to the unit, had no idea where things were, and they wanted me to pass meds that I had not given in years (took forever as I had to look most of them up to refresh my memory). I felt this was an extrememly dangerous practice. I have thought a lot about the situation (staffing), but haven't come up with any answers. Until healthcare becomes about taking care of patients instead of how much money they can make, I don't see it changing.