I work at a facility that has been ignoring staffing ratios for the last few months in all the units. Us nurses have been getting ran through a meat grinder the entire time. We've been missing meals and breaks (we work in CA with a union) and now management is threatening punishment for missing meals and breaks when we're out of ratio. The Director of Nursing said "nothing can go wrong in 30 minutes" and encouraged us ICU nurses to go to lunch despite leaving a charge nurse with 3-5 ICU patients. The other night when I had a 1:1 patient, they sent me a 2nd patient regardless of my objection and my 1:1 pulled their central line out. Crisis was averted, but narrowly.
Anyway, sorry for all of the ancillary information. I'm wondering if any CA nurses specifically have any experience with reporting an employer for this behavior (to the state?). Reporting a facility to the CA Dept. of Health entails including patient information rather than it being related to a staffing ratio problem.
The final straw came when a member of management brought up "time management" problems on the end of staff nurses due to recent overtime and missed meals/breaks. They're actually blaming the staff nurses for time management problems when we're out of ratio or have an encumbered charge with no one to relieve us. Any insight would be appreciated. I'm at my wits end
I work for a cardiac step down unit at a very popular hospital in Florida (Cleveland clinic). Our ratios and our skills are being stretched to the max. Our ratio is currently 5:1 on day shift and tonight it will be 6:1 at night. Day shift has already been warned that we will have to go up to 6:1. We have no staff and it has become extremely unsafe.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
On 3/26/2015 at 5:27 PM, morte said:
Ordinarily yes, but this is Cali, where ratios are written in the law. The union shouldn't need to enforce that.... but of course that would be some pressure to bring to bear.
I could be wrong but I believe the ratios in California have been relaxed due to the current public health emergency.
ruby_jane, BSN, RN
3,142 Posts
FIVE ICU patients???
OY. Keep us posted on how this is resolved, and hang in there.