Really worried and need some advice from my fellow nurses

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For those of you who has worked hospice, please give me some advice. I have been offered a position with a locally owned and operated hospice agency. They seem really great and sincere and work well together. I currently work on a med-surg/psych unit at a local hospital. I am very unhappy there, from the hours to the staff. This hospice agency is small but legitimate and have great reviews. The problem I need advice on is that there are only 3 RN's and two of them take call for one week every other week (mon-sun) with the third being the NM who is back up. I was a supervisor of an assisted living facility and had to take call and it was murder. They would call you at 2am because mom didn't have a BM that day and expected to come and fix her. And if you said that it would be taken care at 7 am, when I got there, they would get mad and report you to the admin. Sooo, to make a long story short, what is hospice call generally like? Do you have to make a visit just because the family demands it or can you delegate them to take action like give a med or it will be addressed in the Am? I don't mind the on call but having to take it and work the next day will burn me out quickly, I have already been through that. Please give me some advice, because I love the hospice facility but I don't want to switch one evil for another!Sorry so long! Thank in advance!

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The facility only has 35-40 clients right now and the NM could not give me a typical week. I haven't had the chance to ask her about the policies for on call and how we are allowed to respond to calls.

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Specializes in Hospice/Palliative Nursing.

You never know whether you're going out until you get the call and triage it. Most of the time our nurses have to go out, but not always. You are also going to have death calls in the middle of the night. Hospice is unpredictable.

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

on call time can be brutal...

If you are on call you have to expect to make visits...some times multiple visits...

Sometimes we visit because the family expects it...

sometimes we visit because we know that we should...

sometimes we visit because we are playing CYA...

Your agency should have a plan to cover your visits the following day if you are out at night.

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