Staffing Issues. (rant)

Do we work together? Things suck so bad right now that the travel nurses hired to come in & ease some of the burden all quit after a couple shifts. Our mgmt actually puts out schedules with only one RN for noc & keeps fingers crossed that other depts will be able to float or some of us will be willing to come in. It's insane!

Our coordinator keeps just letting empty spots go unfilled, causing for rushing through tasks just to get everything done, which is dangerous. I'd say we were understaffed at least 7 days on multiple shifts in the past 10 days.

It seems almost everywhere is understaffed nowadays. It is very frustrating. I feel like a bad nurse somedays or like I could lose my license as the conditions can be unsafe. Companies are pinching pennies anyway they can. It's all about the money and making profit, not the well being of the patients or staff. And when a completely overwhelmed nurse makes a big error he/she is fired although errors are inevitable under these conditions. One nurse can only do so much. And there is always more work added every couple months or so whether it be more charting or new policies/procedures. It's hard to feel like you really made a difference for the patients at the end of the day when you sometimes can only spend a few minutes with them. I've worked in a few different facilities and they always start out alright but then the downsizing and added work eventually comes. I just keep smiling for the patients and try to make it thorough my shift doing the best job I can!!!

Staffing issues is one of the reasons I stopped floor nursing and went back to grad school. Burn out party of 1?

I once worked at a hospital where the floor managers received bonuses by coming in under budget, which some would do by purposely not replacing staff that left. Led to some unsafe working conditions

Join the club. We are experiencing the same thing at my hospital. The unit needs four RN's, two for the day shift and two for nights. Almost all the Nurses on my unit are trying to transfer to other units within the hospital. We have lost six nurses within the last year - at least.

I once worked at a hospital where the floor managers received bonuses by coming in under budget, which some would do by purposely not replacing staff that left. Led to some unsafe working conditions

Sounds like a hospital where I've worked. I'm sure this isn't uncommon but it sucks. Recently we were told that for every 2 nurses that leave, the floor gets one replacememt (possibly).

This is exactly the reason that we ALL need to support 'safe staffing' legislation at the state & local levels. Also, be sure to utilize any processes at your disposal to call attention to the problems.

In my state, we have a 'Safe Harbor' process, whereby a nurse can pro-actively (via formal process) call attention to any potentially unsafe issues related to his/her work assignment. Then, if something does happen, the nurse is protected from liability related to problems caused by the assignment. This process is managed by either Risk or Quality (NOT Nursing, so it can't be easily hidden).

The process DOES NOT indemnify the nurse from malpractice related to poor clinical decisions or substandard judgement/performance. This data must be tracked and reported by every facility. It is making a difference, particularly since the information is relevant to hospital licensing and quality reporting.

If problems arise due to staffing/assignments, be sure to use appropriate methods - such as an incident report - to report them rather than just griping. If you have a workload grievance, file a formal complaint with your HR department.

I moved from Texas to NY and was sad to find there's no equivalent to Safe Harbor here.

It's like that at our hospital too. Six nurses left our floor alone, and due to new changes/buying new hospitals/letting go of a bunch of people, the whole hospital is drowning because no one wants to work with us because of the poor working conditions. And this is at a Magnet hospital! Our pleas are ignored by management, who just keep telling it to "hold it together" and "this is just the way it's going to be". They finally just hired a few temp nurses, but I know that's not going to solve the problem. What's going to happen is eventually a major incident will occur with a patient, and FINALLY those CEOs realize how bad it is instead of telling us to create new ways of cutting the budget even more.

When you consider the large numbers of nurses, especially new grads, who can't find jobs, there's really no excuse for constant understaffing.

So, despite all of the unsafe working conditions, do you guys/gals still enjoy your job as a Nurse? Do you not feel burnt out yet? I keep hearing this is one of the worst aspects of being a Nurse. I'm applying for Nursing schools this fall, so I enjoy reading work experiences from respectable nurses on here.