Tell me again....it does get better?

[Michelle123]

I'm currently rotating on a busy surgical ward.. We have ortho, general surgery and a few urology as well as general medical patients (the overflow from the medical ward).

Most days we are above capacity -44pts. The ratios are 5 patients to one nurse, but it is in groups of 10. So in my team there are two nurses for 10 patients. I am responsible for knowing what is going on with all 10 patients and for their care when my team mate is unavailabe.

I'm still very overwhelmed.

Most if not all of my patients need full assists with mobilising, showering and or bed sponge.

This last two weeks, two of my patients required a sling lifter to get them out of bed.

It takes me so long to get everyone up and showered and ready for the day it is almost lunch time.

Then I need to make sure the fbc are up to date, care plans are done, mid morning obs, lunch time meds, prn pain medications (that have to be signed out by 2 nurses) hand over needs to be done by 1300hrs for the afternoon staff, discharges, post op patients with 1/2 hrly obs.

Then patients want to talk to me about stuff, which is important, but I just don't have time.

I feel that I am lucky to achieve the bare minimum by the end of my shift. I don't feel satisfied at all. I'm not providing the nursing care that I want to give.

I just don't know if I should just wait it out? Or if there is something else I could be doing? I've been working for 6 months now, but only two months on this surgical unit. Should I be doing better by now?

[Nurseinprocess]

Do you not have nurse aides to get the patients up and bathed?

[Michelle123]

Nope.

[knittingknurse]

Work with the evening nurses - about half of the bathing should be done at night to even out the work. That said, it still sounds like a tremendous load without nursing assistants.

[JenRN30, BSN]

I agree. That's crazy to have the pt load and total care of all pts. No way I would be able to get all of that done.

[Nurseinprocess]

Only five pts sounds like a dream job to me, but not if you have full care of all of them! I've never heard of day shift not having aides to help bathe and ambulate the pts, that is the shift who is normally responsible for that. I work nights and we are usually much shorter staffed than days and afternoons, but we only change linens and help bathe if someone has an accident, which thankfully isn't a normal occurance (I work post surgical).

[itsmejuli]

Why aren't there any aides? Crazy!

I'd be looking for another job.