Staff Issues not handled by DON

[WhistlingNurse]

I work in a facility that I consider to be good quality, not perfect but good quality. There are staff issues that are not dealt with by administration and it seems clear that they do not intend to deal with them. I wish to remain professional but not become part of the problem. I have looked to nurses more senior than I to observe how they deal with them. It seems they deal with the issues when forced to but otherwise ignore or they go tit for tat with the problem people. I am looking for ways to be constructive. I am not concerned about resolving the problem since its administrations problem and I'm not going to run around policing others for them. My desire is not to enable the problem people. I have so far tried the ignoring method and only writing up when patient safety is compromised. The general topics that are the problems are bullying from one group of nurses to another nurse and refusing to communicate important information in report. Any advice would be welcome. Thank you.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

The best thing that you can do is to be informed. If you know that the report you get is not ideal, then you really need to be careful to look at your orders, check your meds, and document what you do well. You can only be responsible for you. You are not in a position to enable any other nurse to do or not do anything, as that is out of your control. Be careful and correct in your own actions, and you will build your own good reputation. In this atmosphere and enviroment, your world revolves around your patient care. Do your best, smile, be appropriate and clinically strong. Then it will not matter that others are tit for tatting.......

[AweSmiles]

Hi WhistlingNurse, I work at a reputable hospital that is also having problems with staffing. Well, I know my unit is having a problem and our sister unit is as well but at far as other units go, I haven't heard of staffing being as bad. Which makes it even more concerning because than that means that if our facility can adequately staff the rest of the hospital than it is possible for staffing to be corrected on my unit. I mean, it's to the point that patient safety and quality of care are being impacted. My unit as a group and many individual nurses have gone to our nurse manager, gone to the director of our department, and have been apart of safety meetings to express our concerns. What has been done? Nothing besides more paperwork to fill out leaving less time with our patients. Administration seems to just come by and nod their heads as they listen to us. It almost feels as if they just want us to feel like we're being heard and to be quite for a little while longer. It's actually sad because I am a new nurse and I've developed this resentment towards administration in my facility for their lack of consideration of their employees. It almost makes me lack trust. I feel like this situation is hopeless. I mean, if they want evidence to prove that our staffing does not match our increasingly high acuity patients than we can give it to them. We can show them more med errors that are occurring, more readmissions occurring, a decrease in our patient satisfaction surveys. Its actually sad because I feel bad for the patients and my fellow coworkers. It's pretty bad when even patients blurt out the words "you guys do not seem adequately staffed to handle such heavy patients." Well, we've tried to get someone from administration on our side with no success and what feels like no voice.

And my unit also has a problem with bullying. I don't get it either. It feels like middle school all over again. And this is supposed to be a professional environment? I never thought adults behaved like this. And again, nothing has been done. Nurses on my unit make up stories about other nurses ( like not just a little lie, they literally make up entire stories), they talk about the nicest nurses and the ones that try so hard, and they even go to our nurse manager with these lies and basically gossip to her. I can't believe I am even writing all this because I can't believe this has become the place where I spend most of my time.

I just wanted to let you hear about my unit so that you could know that you're not alone. And I hope that someday soon our voices are heard by administration and things can be fixed. Hang in there.