Reassigned due to Covid

[Susycute]

Hello everyone! I am an LVN and work in a hospital that has outpatient clinics like family care, internal medicine, urology, and other specialties. I love working in my clinic, my team, and my schedule there(mornings/mon-fri). Due to the covid surge I was reassigned to the ER for night shift for January and management’s “goal” is to send me back to my clinic after that. Don’t get me wrong, I know some nurses there are drowning and do need the extra help but working in a outpatient clinic the ER is intimidating because even though some of the things they do there are under my scope of practice I don’t do many of those things on a daily basis. I tried asking my manager if I could be reassigned to another area due to having 2 or more underlying health conditions that increase my risk for covid but was basically told there’s covid everywhere to suck it up because reassignments were based on seniority. A couple days before going to the ER I was given a 2 hour course on the charting template they use. I did not get any training on the ER floor. On my first day in ER I was thrown to an area to do IVs, blood draws, oral/IM medications, vaccines, and run labs. I was able to do some IVs successfully. The first day I did good and the staff was happy with me and the other LVN that was there with me. The second night we had different nurses and I did noticed some of these nurses were bothered that we were not given PIXIS access and they had to pull out the meds out for us to give. A nurse said “if they don’t have PIXIS access they ain’t no good for me” ? After that the ER charge nurse informed us there was a mistake and we were actually assigned for that night to a covid + unit and not ER and we needed to head over there. Same thing happened there another nurse that gave me attitude due to the PIXIS access. We were asking the nurses there if they needed any help and even asking the CNAs if they needed help with their patient care but they would answer “no I’m OK”.  So my frustration here is why have me reassigned if I’m not needed or getting attitude from these nurses? Other CNAs did accept my help for me to do their patient care so they can sit and chill on their phone. I am bother because I have never worked nights, I have young children and babysitting is an issue, and I just feel that my life was moved around to accommodate their needs and I get all this nonsense. I feel so depressed I don’t  want to go back to ER. I’m sorry for venting. 

[caliotter3]

If it bothers you enough to resign then do so, but with the knowledge that the chaos of Covid is the underlying 'reason' for all of this.  It might be wise to look into other avenues of employment for the long haul if you want to maximize your ability to stay safe.  Home health agencies are now advertising the desirability of home care to minimize exposure.  You might consider extended care home health as an alternative to your present situation.