do rns perform housekeeping duties where you work?
i got the shock of my life this week during clinicals. i escorted a female patient to the shower. after i helped the patient with the shower and returned her to her room, i proceeded to my next assigned patient.
my supervising co-nurse stopped me, and told me that i needed to clean the shower. she then walked me down the hall to the housekeeping closet and pointed out the correct bottle of disinfectant i needed to use. she then informed me of the written procedures for cleaning the shower [spray disinfectant on the walls, floors, etc. any surface that the patient may have come in contact with; wait a certain amount of time; then return and rinse the entire shower area down].
i am not a prima donna by any stretch of the imagination , but i naively thought that housekeeping did facility cleaning in the hospital.
well, i remained calm, and sprayed the shower down, but luckily by the time i returned to finish, housekeeping had already finished cleaning the shower.
so, my question to you is this:
are you required to do housekeeping tasks in your workplace?
was this just a power play by the co-nurse to humble the newbie?
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Originally posted by Headhurt
IWe may wipe down a table or bed in a pinch, but we don't do an all out effort to make our unit sparkle. If it takes away from the patient, then it is not an option...unless there is a safety issue involved.
Let's not forget also that there's more to readying a room for a patient than just "wiping the bed down" or something like that. Most hospitals, etc..have guidleines and criteria they have to meet on cleanliness guidelines to prevent cross contaimination. I'd be FURIOUS if i were a patient and found out my nurse had to wipe my bed down, replace the sheets and empty the trash. Cuz then who mopped, wiped down all the hardware, cleaned the toilet/sink, etc..etc...who knows when it had been done last if that's the case?
So while I am taking care of neutropenic patients, they want me to clean toilets and decontaminate a VRE/MRSA/TB/CDiff room. And when I am late changing chemo/TPN/IV bags, I just tell my immunosupressed patient, I was cbusy cleaning a toilet.
Yes, I know that will go over well.
Sorry buds, if I am prepping for an admit, it is probably because I have just done a discharge, and I need to be getting my work done, not cleaning toilets. I don't do housekeeping.
If the hospital wants to turn over beds that fast, they can hire extra staff.
You will have worked long and hard to accomplish your goals. Remeber that as an LPN or an RN you are accountable for your nursing practice. Time spent away from nursing duties and patient care can compromise the license that you will have worked so hard for.
Your State Board of Nursing will not care if something happens to one of the patients in your care and were doing housekeeping duties instead of nursing. You are accountable for nursing care.
Your posts show that you are a kind and caring person.
Take care of yourself and let support services do their job.
If we continue to do non-nursing tasks management will not hire more support staff.
Once you have that professional license you will see the difference in your responsibilities and all that is expected of you as a nurse.
The only housekeeping duties I do are at home.
Our housekeeping staff does not give out meds, assess patients, take vital signs etc. They perform a very important job keeping the place clean and disinfected. Nurses shouldn't be doing housekeeping duties.
CNA's as part of the nursing staff should not be doing housekeeping duties either.
I don't see social workers, MD's, administrators cleaning the units.
I think it starts at top management and how nursing is viewed as a profession. If we don't value ourselves and our many years of education and levels of responsibility, why should anyone else value us?
Things have gotten out of hand since restructuring and re-engineering the health care system. Increased patient load, increased acuity level and less support staff. I assume there is no union for nurses where you work or in your state.
I have always worked in N.Y. state and have been a member of NYSNA so I'm sure that makes a difference.
We need to get away from doing everyone elses jobs and concentrate and why we are here---to provide safe, competent nursing care.
I've worked at some hospitals where nurses did allot of housekeeping.
At the worst one, housekeeping wouldn't clean any bodily fluids. They would come to the desk and demand that RN's go down the hall and clean up toilets because there was a piece of poop on the seat. They would hand you a mop if there was even a spot of blood on the floor, They would leave linen carts full because someone had left 1 bag out of several untied. They would constantly be complaining / refusing to empty trash because the bags were filled too full so an RN would have too open all the bags and take out some of the trash. I actually saw a 6 foot 220 guy make a 98 pound nurse fill up his cart because he thought the linen bags were too heavy. It was crazy I mean what the hell did they think? all housekeeping meant was sweeping up dust and making beds?
Now I work at a place that is pretty good. Housekeepers clean up anything. They don't touch instruments or needles which I can understand.
I do clean up after deliveries because I don't want my patients or there family slipping on blood or having to look at it. I could call housekeeping but I think that would interfere with the families privacy. I change trash bags when they get too full, just because I feel like a jerk making someone stop what ever they are doing because I'm too good to do it. But thank god I don't have to scrub toilets anymore =P
We do clean bedspaces and RW's when we have to. Sometimes we have to move kids quickly for new admits and what are we supposed to do...say, hey lady, cross your legs, the housekeepers have 4 rooms ahead of you and their lunch break We share housekeeping with L/D and the 2 postpartum and nurseries, so we make do.
But like someone else said...I draw the line at toilets
What i meant by cleaning the showers, i meant spraying with disinfectant and wiping with a towel after each pt.
I remember when I started out as a nurse we only had one community shower for the geriatric LTC unit and we had to do this too...it only took a minute (usually) LOL!! There was NO point in doing your hair on shower rotation day...LOL!!
Now we have showers in most rooms...thank goodness!
I think one of the questions was "Were do you work..." as far as if you have to participate in housekeeping tasks...Unfortunatly in some LTC facilities, housekeeping/ maintainance is not a 24 hr position... Mostly at ous they all leave after 4pm...soooo, who do you thinks gets to clean up the messes (and yes...some of the demented elderly are worse that a 2yr)
do rns perform housekeeping duties where you work?
she then walked me down the hall to the housekeeping closet and pointed out the correct bottle of disinfectant i needed to use. she then informed me of the written procedures for cleaning the shower [spray disinfectant on the walls, floors, etc. any surface that the patient may have come in contact with; wait a certain amount of time; then return and rinse the entire shower area down]. 
We share housekeeping with L/D and the 2 postpartum and nurseries, so we make do. 
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
LPN2Be, of COURSE, It's a given I clean up after myself. I agree with you there, and have no issues with that....but...
that was not what we were discussing here, originally.
cleaning showers and other such heavy cleaning duty is what housekeeping is for.
if a place refuses to hire enough housekeeping staff to keep up, it's not a place i desire to work.
we are splitting hairs here, now.