true or false?

Load of crap. My hospital is always full (level one trauma center with 900 beds and adding on). We don't even always have ICU beds for our OR's, and they stay the night in PACU.

The economy is the worst here in MI. So what does that mean to you? Your facility is wanting to increase loads on the nurse and cut the budget. Nurses are the biggest easiest way to cut the budget.

true, the highe-ups that do not take care of patients, do not mind one little bit about cutting the floor staff! one of the many reasons i had to leave bed side nursing.

we had the same problem, 5-10 pts per 1 nurse, only one tech for 22+ pts, no unit secretary and no linen!! how do they justify that? oh, low census, yet all those that work 8-4 or 9-5 never get sent home, always have plenty of help,load of crap!!

sorry, just venting with you!! i have felt the pain too!

I work in the er of a level one trauma center approx 844 beds in FL. Our census has been down for several months. It is a strange situation as we are all used to having ed patients in the hallways. People have been getting cancelled even if they are not on overtime. We are hering that there aren't even any places to float. Most of us are really worried and tryiing to find prn positions elsewhere. I guess I, personally, have gotten too used to getting a bunch o overtime. So yeah, i know what you are going through.

Lies...all...Lies...Are their noses growing:grn::msk:

I think you are being bamboozled!!! Is this really how we deal with a bad economy? Unsafe and poor patient care???? Very Sad!!

Personnally, I would go to the media and let them know what is going on. Patients are paying alot of $$$$ to be in a hospital for nursing care, not administrative care. They are not getting their moneys worth by a long shot.

Get it out to the public what is going on. And be ready to file a whisleblower lawsuit in case they fire you. You could also start having marches in front of the hospital, letting people know what is going on.

Start collecting staffing sheets, be ready to write incident reports regarding short staffing (and don't forget to make copies for yourself), take pictures with a camera phone, etc. A picture is worth a thousand words. Keep notes as to what is not getting done because of the poor staffing, and lack of ancillary personnel. Take pictures of empty lines shelves and supply cabinets. Contact JCAHO, the Board of Health, and the Facilities and Licensing Division of the Board of Health. These are the people who LICENSE the hospitals so they can stay in business. In other words, make alot of noise!! JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

not true at my smallish community hospital... last week our hospital was FULL ... something that doesn't usually happen for us unless it's snowbird (Winter) season...

Granted, i work in labor/delivery and can only speak for my own unit, but in august we had a record number of deliveries, which would mean quite hte high census for both us and mother/baby. Hiring new nurses. I haven't noticed the economy directly affecting my job/my unit.

Sounds like an excuse to me.

What mitchsmom said.

So people aren't getting sick because the economy's bad?

This does not compute.

I've worked in a place where we had to dump out bottles of sterile saline and hydrogen peroxide and use the empty bottles as sharps containers, because we had none. Have also had to clean inconitnent pts with paper towels from the cafeteria.

I'm sure admin all got their bonuses that year.

I too am feeling your pain... our unit is very small (297 deliveries last year) and includes GYN and PEDS. So far for the year we are down 60 deliveries, there aren't as many hysters staying over, and the peds admissions are few and far between (hopefully RSV season will help out a little in the coming months!). Our hospital has been through a lay-off at the beginning of this summer and we're still struggling. Being that our unit is also a closed unit, we have always taken call (at minimum wage) on a rotating basis to help dispel the costs of when we have no patients. This can really put a damper on the paycheck - one paycheck I had 6 call shifts out of my 9 scheduled.... OUCH!!! Thankfully we usually have an overflow of pts come in the next week and there are chances to double for the overtime which can help a little!