There is a nurse, "Janet", who worked at my hospital for years, was a traveler for awhile and now has been rehired and is working as a charge nurse.
I floated to her unit last Friday and had a horrible night. She kept dumping stuff on me. I ended up with six patients, one died, one was an admit, and a couple others were quite ill and needed lots of care. At one point my patient had an important need, and she took a half hour to help me. I was running so much, I was not really safe with my patients. She had less than half the work I did. We had someone we could call in, and I asked her several times. She refused, because then "we'd get all the admits that night." (There was only one more admit in the hospital that night.) I got overtime that night trying to get finished, and she was still charting when I left!?
I wasn't going to say anything to the manager. It was just one bad night. I don't want to tattle just because I don't get along with someone. Also, I don't want to get on the bad side of "Janet."
Then I talked with older nurses who worked with her in the past, and they have all said she is horrible to work with, dumps work on others. They say "I can't believe they hired her back." One said she often was not safe - she would watch other people's patients and they would "have a seizure" or "turn blue" or something to cause a big work up to be done - like an odd Munchhausen syndrome.
Do I go to the manager? My experience was just one bad night, but other people are saying things that aren't safe for patients. Do I tell her what others are saying? She is on that 90 day probation for being on a new job, so it would be easy for the manager to let her go.
