Staffing Issue

Yikes. It does sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I also work in a small rural hospital- we do 500-600 births a year....so maybe that amount makes the difference. We always have two RNs on at all times trained to do labor and work with sick babies. We also do not have any support staff so we do all the non-nursing stuff too. And no in-house anesthesia on pm/noc shift either. I would not be comfortable being on the unit by myself ever. OB is a pregnant-person ER a lot of the time, and you just don't know what (and how many!) is going to walk in your door. And grabbing a nurse from another unit in an emergency doesn't cut it (although they could help). You need someone with solid OB skills to back you up. I don't think having a ton of experience is the issue- if you had a ton of experience you probably wouldn't even consider working at a place that staffs like that because you would be able to easily imagine all the ways it could go wrong wrong wrong.

I don't think it would hurt to talk to the manager- I'd like to hear the justification myself! If I were you, I'd look for a job elsewhere.

I also work in a small rural hospital. We have one big unit - L&D, PP and Nurs. We usually staff with 2 RNs and 2 LVNs. We are suppose to have 2 RNs on the floor at all times but that doesn't always happen. I am a nervous wreck on the nights when I am the only RN. How is the staffing on days vs nights? Maybe if the staffing is better on days you should stay on that shift. I have very limited options for other employment so I am kind of stuck.