...No, it's not just me. Those of us who work the night shift, whether its from 11pm-7a or 7pm-7am, are treated like second class citizens. Its as if we don't matter, or don't exist! Obviously, those who work days (7a-3p) are the prima donas of nursing, and always get preferential treatment by higher ups, but even 3a-11p nurses don't have it as bad as graveyard workers do. We don't get any consideration by higher-ups. When scheduling inservices (which are always mandatory) they are scheduled during typically day-shift hours. Whenever the facility decides to acknowledge its workers, its always something done during their usual hours of operation in the business office (so the clerks and office personell who have little or nothing to do with nursing benefit).
Why do I bring this up, you ask? ...Well, just recently, the facility I work for completed their annual state survey. Anyone who works in long term care knows exactly how it goes. The state comes in and reviews everything about the daily operations, what is implemented as far as nursing care. How its implemented and if its being done right. Much like hospital accredidations, the facility can not accept medicare or medicaid patients without the green light from the state. And, in rare situations, must be shut down if considered extremely dangerous to patient safety. The state can also put a nurse's license up for board review if a nurse's work is considered suspect, or if she/he makes too many errors while a surveryor is standing over their shoulder. It is the most frustrating and nerve-racking experience you could ever be a part of. First of all, most facilities don't follow through year round with half the things they're supposed to throughout the year, and when their "window" opens for the state to come in, the big-cheeses run around like chickens with their heads chopped off trying to correct all their mistakes they let slide all year long. Paperwork not filed, forms that don't include certain information that they neglected to include when they designed the forms, areas not kept clean and tidy (like the med-room or even the med-carts), orders not being transcribed properly, treatments not being done (who has time to do this when you've got to do everything else: so they temporarily assign a nurse to get them done or hire someone to do it while the state is there). There are what seems like a million things that aren't done all year that suddenly matter, and guess who the brunt of it falls to to "fix"? The night shift.
Somewhere along the lines, some idiot got the brilliant notion that night nurses do absolutely nothing all night long. So, whenever there's something that has to be done (and done right), its assigned to the night nurses to get it accomplished. Things like, cleaning the med-carts (messes left by filthy nurses who think their mammas work their and will clean it up for them), junk left lying around because someone else was too lazy to find an appropriate place to put it, MD orders not taken off when they were written, and my persnal favorite...putting dates on open vials and containers. Why can't day nurses do this when they open something up? Are their precious hands too dainty for the task? (Yes, it bothers me, because I shouldn't have to correct your mistakes, because you're too lazy to do something right the first time!) But I digress...
With everything that night nurses do, first of all a lot of crap is dumped on us to "fix" or "clean up", like we're the house-keeping crew. Secondly, while the rest of you have your pretty little heads on a pillow dreaming of sugar-plum fairies, the rest of us are awake and caring for patients. We aren't sitting on our plump behinds reading romance novels and sleeping at the desk. There are lots of things done on the night shift that can't or don't get done during the daylight hours. And, regardless of popular belief, the majority of patients don't sleep at night. Most either have insomnia themselves, or have to be wakened by the CNAs during care rounds. There are falls out of bed, there are the screamers who wake everyone else up. There are duties such as assessments, head counts, and yes charting. But there is also a full med pass at 600am that has to be completed by 700am. With many facilities using CMAs now to pass meds, day and evening nurses are often spared this time consuming task. And, all this is accomplished during what normally is considered hours of sleep. But, are we appreciated? NO!
Like every other facility I've worked for, when the time comes to reward nurses (for doing their job...hmmm), night nurses aren't considered in the least. Like I said, we just completed our state survey. After all the hoop-la, we only got a few minor "tags" or "citations". The higher ups celebrated by treating the staff to pizza. That is they treated the staff from 7-3 and 3-11 to pizza. They were nice enough to leave their scraps for the night shift to pick over. (yeah, right!). Cold, disgusting looking pizza left-overs, sitting out all afternoon that stunk. That was night shift's "reward". But, that is always the way. We are second class citizens, always have been and always will be. Most of us really don't care about your little pizza parties or catered lunches, but what if we weren't there to clean up after you, and to keep operations running throughout the night, so that everything runs smoothly for you in the morning? What then? Would management finally acknowledge our contributions? Probably not.
