R U busy at work

Repat · Mar 9, 2004

Yes! We were just saying it's time for the spring lull, but we have had to open a whole floor just to keep the ED holds. What's going on?

RN-PA, RN · Mar 9, 2004

I'm in southeastern PA and we've been bursting at the seams on and off since October 2003. It seems like every other patient I have has pneumonia.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Mar 9, 2004

getting worse all the time

pixiel · Mar 9, 2004

oh yes, I am in southeastern Pa too. We have been so tight on beds since the fall.

jkaee · Mar 11, 2004

I'm in the same area, and from my experience this winter has been brutal on patients and staff. All of our respiratory cases are taking extra long to become well again....it just seems to hang around forever this year.

allnurses Guide · Mar 11, 2004

We have 15 acute beds and a couple of days this week I had ONE patient.

Today there were 6 patients (7 if you count the new baby), 2 RN's and 2 CNA's.

70 miles away in Redding the hospitals are packed.

Glad I work here. :)

steph

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Mar 11, 2004

Home care JUMPING in SE PA too.

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Mar 11, 2004

We've been hopping too.......one weekday recently we literally couldn't admit any more patients and had them lined up in the ED for hours, waiting for beds. We couldn't discharge people fast enough---we'd send three patients home, and the beds would hardly be cold before three new patients came up to replace them. We had plenty of staff on that day, thank God, but it was one of those days when you could have two staff for every patient and it still wouldn't have been enough---I sent two of my own patients to the ICU within 30 minutes of each other when they began heading south, and it seemed like every other patient on the floor was either a potential 1:1 or a code waiting to happen :uhoh3:

It's actually been busy since the holidays......late-season flu hitting the old people hard, we've still got a lot of the ETOHers and drug users coming in, and the diabetics are having a bad time of it lately (guess they didn't give up the chocolate for Lent like good boys and girls :chuckle ). To make things worse, the management has been making lots of noise lately about cracking down on overtime and cutting staff.....but then last night we had 6 RNs, an LPN and two aides for only twenty patients. It's weird......3-11 is better staffed than 7-3, and the period from 7 PM to 11 PM is usually OVERstaffed. They usually cut to minimum staffing at 11 PM, with only one or no aides and each nurse with five or six patients. But you couldn't pay me enough to work 7-3; not only does day shift make less money and have to deal with more stuff, they often have five or more patients........sometimes by themselves. (Used to be they only had 3-4 with an aide.) Makes me glad I'm a 3-11 kind of girl. :)