true or false?

Published

At my hospital recently a lot of staff in all departments, not just OB, have been getting canceled or floated due to low census. One unit last week had an estimated 60 cancellation/floats in one week. The hospital says this is due to the "downturn in the entire economy." They are also not just canceling staff but increasing the nurse to pt ratios and the charge nurses are having to take full assignments despite the fact there are no techs or sec's on. Admin tells us there is a drop in census in hospitals all over the country now. Have you all found this to be true at your hospitals? I feel like there are so many salaried administration types (excluding nurse managers) that are not on the "front lines" that continue to work their worthless 9-5 positions (maybe that was too harsh) while nurses get stretched dangerously thin and they cut staff in other vital depts such as laundry so you can't even get any linens delivered for over 24 hours because there literally isn't anyone to bring it so your patients lay there on dirty, bloody sheets and you try your best to cover the blood with chux and apologize over and over. And how does admin explain babies having no shirts or blankets after they are just born because there are none! It's getting absurd! That was a little ranting...sorry. What have been your experiences?

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

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.

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Private Duty Peds.

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!

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Specializes in ED, telemetry.

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.:scrying:

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Specializes in dialysis (mostly) some L&D, Rehab/LTC.

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

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Specializes in PICU/NICU.

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

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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

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Specializes in OB, lactation.

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...

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Specializes in LDRP.

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.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

What mitchsmom said.

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

This does not compute.

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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.

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