That is it, I am becoming a Walmart greeter!

Mimi2RN, ASN, RN · Jan 2, 2004

You start by calling the housekeeping supervisor. If they don't have one at night, leave the bathroom.....not your job.....let day shift deal with it. I can't imagine days being very happy about it, so there will be complaints. You could also fill out an NOE, for risk management to get involved. Just imagine another patient being put in that room, if it's not cleaned! Unfortunately, the public only see the dirt when it's really bad. Your lazy housekeeper is wrong about her job, she is there to clean up the blood and feces!

Our hosp. contracted out housekeeping services, who took away the mops and buckets, replacing them with something like a big Swiffer. The floors were shiny but filthy under the shine. I finally used pink soap and wiped a clean streak across the floor, about a foot wide. Took some photos with a polaroid, and left everything for f/u by days. There was a very quick response, as the streak was so obvious. We don't often see housekeepers on nights, but they are short staffed. We know where they are when we call as we have caller ID on the phones. If it says cafe, we know they got a break!

live4today, RN · Jan 2, 2004

((((((huggietoes)))))) :kiss I can feel your sorrow about the conditions nurses are forced to work under in some facilities. Don't blame you for thinking of working at Walmart......have thought about it myself.

I can hear me now.......Hello, Welcome to Walmart! May I get a cart for you!

And when they leave the store I'd say....Have a great day (evening) (night)! Drive safe!

Also thinking of working at Barnes & Nobles Bookstore. I love that store, and I love to be surrounded by fresh smelling books. I think I should have been a librarian or bookstore owner instead of a nurse since I missed my calling to attend medical school. :rolleyes:

Woe are we who must consider such obstacles in life to be peacfully employed! :chuckle

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2004

Nursing has to clean up the bodily fluids and poop in our hospital too. Then we call housekeeping to do the sanitizing. But only after most of it is cleaned up by us.

Sorry you had a bad night.

Helori · Jan 2, 2004

I know what you mean!

A couple of months ago I had a pt die about 2400. So I called housekeeping to clean the room for a new admission (It was the only empty bed on our floor and emerg was packed). After paging the housekeeper, they called back and told me that there wasn't enough staff on nights so they now only had to clean the L&D rooms after 2300 everything else could wait could wait for days. Well, emerg wasn't going to accept that as a reason for me not taking an admission so between caring for the pt before they died, caring for the family after, the paperwork, preparing the body for the mourge, taking report on the new admission, stabilizing the new admission when they got to the floor and the paperwork--I got to clean the room too!!!!!!

BTW, when I paged housekeeping again at abought 0300 because another pt threw up blood all over the floor (HIV+ and HepC+), this was after I'd already cleaned up the vomit but I wanted them to mop the floor too (the mops on our floor are locked in the housekeeping closet--of all the things I'd steal!!!). The housekeeped ignored my page. I only got ahold of them because I called L&D and asked the nurse there to send the housekeeper up when they saw them. When the housekeeper got to the floor before I could even tell them what I'd called them for she started to lecture me about how busy she was!!!!

KristinWW · Jan 2, 2004

Originally posted by huggietoes
Another night from he*l and to top it off a lazy patient that was upset that he had to wait went into the bathroom and smeared feces EVERYWHERE, so I contact housekeeping that by the way had been sitting in their lounge watching tv while I am running my a$$ off, informs me that "I do not have to clean up body fluids, and body fluids are blood, vomit, feces, sputum and urine", excuse me, where is the form that I sign saying what I will or will not do. So on top of the meds, procedures, assessments, triages, reams of paperwork, telephone triage calls, and dealing with patients and their families I am now suppose to mop floors and wipe surfaces? I guess while I am taking the IV tray from room to room I will drag the mop and bucket with me and perform double duty. Why do people expect to keep a job but not work? I just do not get it, I worked at other facilities where the housekeepers took pride in their work and it showed. Instead the facility I am at now bows to them and lets the hospital fall down around us, floors with mud, blood and scuff marks, dust balls as big as tumbleweeds blowing out from under the nurses' station, no paper towels, no soap, grrrrrrrrrr!!! I am so tired of people adding to my misery. Anyone else that can commiserate?

What is it with the smearing? We were called by a pt's roommate to find the pt happily and quietly smearing his feces on himself and his bed at 2 AM. He was sitting in the dark and working quite creatively.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Jan 2, 2004

We clean up "chunks" of anything, then housekeeping does the rest.

I don't tolerate lazy. Take it to the housekeeping supervisor, and use the chain of command if that doesn't work.

(But i was a housekeeper in healthcare facilities before i was a CNA. And you get treated like s**t. Bust your butt for 8 hours to clean so well that you could eat off the floor and all you're told is "see that hair? BAD!". Not to mention the nurses and the CNAs that said "Oh, housekeeper girl?" or "Hey THERE'S our little maid" or the even better "Hey p*ssmopper, get on your knees and get this mess cleaned up" and then laughing and making fun of my job, and never once refering to me by my name. This happened to anyone i worked with. Assigned to clean 28 rooms aday, not a mere dust and sweep, i mean ceiling to the floor scrub down, and the majority of the mess staff-created. Wound up on worker's comp for two weeks after slipping and falling in appx. a cup of G-tube feeding that someone spilled in the floor, and never told anyone about, which also perfectly matched the tile. Go to the supervisor, why though? She'd just tell me that this is the way people were. Wasn't the way i was, and i quit. Sorry for the rant, just a thought i had after seeing a nurse deliberately dump the completely full hole puncher tray out on the floor, 7 ft away from the trashcan 4 hours ago. In some areas, it goes both ways.)

jschut, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2004

As a nurse, I always thought that nurses would pick up after themselves.

WOOBOY! Was I ever wrong! The nurses I work with are the laziest, messiest bunch of creatures ever to "grace" this earth!

Let's order pizza! (Then leave food and crust, all over the desks and the floor!)

Let's throw paper away (whether it hits the trash can or not, we don't care!)

Paper hole puch? (Yea! Those little circles of paper can be used as confetti to joke with a buddy!)

In the staff bathroom? Overflowing tash cans, overflowing feminine cans, usually no paper towels and no soap (They say they had to cut back on housekeeping...)

So I'm with ya on this one! Wish people would clean up after themselves, or at least DO their job! :rolleyes:

Rapheal · Jan 2, 2004

Our housekeeping has surprisingly gotten very lax as well. They used to be excellent. So many times I go in to put linens in a "clean room" and find used tissues, straws, ect., under the bed. Let's not even talk about the patient bathrooms.

MishlB · Jan 2, 2004

Originally posted by Mimi2RN
You start by calling the housekeeping supervisor. If they don't have one at night, leave the bathroom.....not your job.....let day shift deal with it. I can't imagine days being very happy about it, so there will be complaints.

Excuse me??? Let day shift deal with it??? Clean it up, and put in a formal complaint the next day.

sjoe · Jan 2, 2004

As always, if nurses pick up the slack for other departments that don't do their jobs, then guess what! The job now becomes nursing's responsibility.

And again, as always:

huggietoes · Jan 2, 2004

Thank you everyone for your supportive replies. I treat everyone in the facility with respect and I clean my own share, believe me I (when I have a free moment) wipe down the 'med machine' since it always seems to be sticky, yuck, have taken a broom and swept behind the station, mopped my share of blood, vomit, feces, but when I am running all night seeing 50 emergent patients, having charts thrown at me by the MD, being kicked by patients, told off by family members concerning the wait time, go to get supplies and find that although there was about 70% more staff they could not for some reason stock rooms I get a little testy when someone tells me that they will not perform their duties and expect me to do them on top of all of mine, not to mention that I do not have bleach to effectively clean blood and do not have access to the cleaning solutions that the housekeepers do. Also, when I contacted the housekeeping staff the night before the housekeeper came down told me "you interrupted my break and you better mop the blood off of the f&*king floor before I clean" and then would not let me use her mop! "you are not using my mop, you can just get on your hands and knees and use a towel" Excuse me? I am just becoming burnt out, stressed out and fed up, I guess. But then again who isn't?