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?
Sorry about your bad shift. I have to comment on the Housekeeping situation. Risk Management and Infection Control should be contacted. OSHA would love to know that employees are at such risks with no official measures to control contamination and exposure during certain hours. And I would have left the room dirty, as your time is more valuable spent doing other things (like caring for your current patient load). Cleaning a room properly takes a lot of time and you don't have that block of time while nursing so let someone else worry about it.
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?
Oh girl, I tell ya I don't know how you didn't lose it with that person. I am not normally a violent person but I think I would have to tell her to shove her precious little mop up her rectal orifice. There is no excuse for her to talk to you like that! I do NOT think so!
"At the rural county hospital where I work we have no housekeeping after midnight on weekends and 230a on weekdays so IT IS OUR JOB to clean delivery rooms and section suite if we want to have a clean area for our next delivery. Leaving it is not an option. I have also emptied trash in my patients rooms to keep the sanitary pads from overflowing into the floor. I can not call housekeeping if the hospital does not employee them."
It isn't your job...it is what your employer expects you to do ON TOP of your job. It is THEIR job to hire housekeeping staff, and it sounds like they are NOT doing their job. Your job is being a professional nurse and assuring you are treated prosionally so that your patients can receive professional care. WHY would the hospital employ a housekeeper when nurses will do it for free? Do the doctors performing the deliveries for a lot more more than the hourly wage you receive clean these rooms you feel obligated to clean? I would think JACHO would be very interested that you are busy and concerned re emptying trash of sanitary napkins in one room while assisting deliveries in the next and busy cleaning and sanitizing a room while another woman may be experiencing decels or sudden precipitous delivery down the hall and out of earshot of your mop and sudsy water. And OSHA would be interested as well.
I work in a LTC facility on the Medicare floor. My frustration has been great and growing over the last few years there. I work night shift. We have 3 floors. Where we had 3 nurses and 2 CNA's for each floor and 1 on Alz. unit, we now have 2 nurses and only 1 CNA on Medicare floor and 2 on the other floors with 1 on the Alz. unit. Prior to the loss of the nurse, we were getting rafts of crap about the increase in falls at night, within a month they had taken a nurse. Not only do the CNA's do their reg. work, they are expected to fold clothes for the floor. Of course, we all mop etc., when needed as there are NO hskpg staff. What is my greatest gripe is trying to be the charge nurse of the building, work with the one's right out of the hosp., sent without pain med orders (oh the PM nurse forgot to call) and no anti-anxiety med ordered even though they have been on it for 40 years. And one CNA. Hmmm --- guess I have to be the 2nd CNA on the floor too.
And then there is a screw-up. Hmm, being the longest RN, it gets dumped in my lap for blame, even though I have a person dying, an Alz. res with a broken hip and trying to crawl out of bed all the time and a 3rd res trying to die. Gee, am I super-nurse or what???
HA And when state came in we sure got the 3rd nurse back fast ---well while they were here anyway. Or the schizophrenic pt that comes in at 3PM and is sedated until about 8PM from the hosp. meds which we don't have orders for. And no one to call to sit 1:1 with any kind of confused res. Law suit waiting to happen!?!
Ahh I worked for Barnes and Noble for 2 years and Borders for another 2 years and LOVED it! Of course there is no money in retail but it was so much fun.
Ahh I worked for Barnes and Noble for 2 years and Borders for another 2 years and LOVED it! Of course there is no money in retail but it was so much fun.
purplemania, BSN, RN
2,617 Posts
Sorry about your bad shift. I have to comment on the Housekeeping situation. Risk Management and Infection Control should be contacted. OSHA would love to know that employees are at such risks with no official measures to control contamination and exposure during certain hours. And I would have left the room dirty, as your time is more valuable spent doing other things (like caring for your current patient load). Cleaning a room properly takes a lot of time and you don't have that block of time while nursing so let someone else worry about it.