I'm just going to throw this out there.. I'm a little worried about my job, and my license. Nothing has happened YET to harm me or my license.. But let me just explain what is going on. (and hope this whole time that my employer does not read this)
Where I work, I was hired as an ICU nurse. The facility is new and the ICU is not open yet. They told me in December when I was hired that it would open in January, in the meantime I'm working on the only floor that is open, med/surg. It is an LTAC. Everyone is nice there, but that really doesn't go far when you've got the problems that this hospital has.
The last few weekends I have been having a terrible time at work. I have been dubbed the unofficial charge nurse of this place and on the weekends I am, again, the unofficial "house supervisor" while having a few patients myself.
It didn't really bother me at first because I knew that someone needed to do it and really the patients were not that ill. I mean, they were ill, but stable and not getting worse or better.
But, now we have a house full of patients that can go either way in a heartbeat. Two weeks ago I had a terrible day and BEGGED the manager to come in. She basically told me to deal with it, she wasn't coming in, she had better things to do and that the nurses need to be more independent.. WHAT??! Okay, so I dealt with it.
Then, the other day, we had a patient code. He coded for several hours and we saved his life. Now he's on a vent, in the med/surg unit. Now, this floor is not condusive to an ICU patient AT ALL. The patient is at THE END OF THE HALLWAY. The powers that be seem to think that if we have an ICU nurse then we are able to handle it.
Well, it is madness. There is no backup for the ICU nurse, and that first day I found myself leaving my vent patient and walking all the way down to the nursing desk just to take a pee break, or to BEG SOMEONE to break me out,, only to see all the nurses scatter from the desk like they are cochroaches and I just turned on the lightswitch.
So, anyway, this morning my back was hurting sooo bad that I called in. I made sure there was enough staff to take care of the patients first, and then I told them I wasn't coming. I didn't get into trouble and this is not the issue. But I found out just now that they had the day from hell up there. That there was NO leadership, no charge nurse and the powers that be still seem to think we can be alright like this. She even announced that we will be admitting another ICU patient tomorrow into the med/surg floor.... a patient on a vent. Again, as long as we have one ICU nurse, we are alright.
NOT.
I don't know about you other ICU nurses, but with me, I can't work alone. I always like there to be atleast one other ICU nurse there so we can meld our thoughts and think through things. I find it scary to EVEN THINK about having two vent patients, alone, on a med/surg floor. How can you be in two rooms at once???? It's not possible. It is just not. And you can't leave your ICU patients alone, by themselves!!
On top of all this, I am assumed to take the leadership role. The nurses will all come to me with their charge nurse stuff, and I will be feeling too guilty to turn them away, where else will they be able to go to if they need help?? No one. There is no one else, that is why it was such a bad day today.
I was advised by a very good friend of mine that works there also to call in again tomorrow. I don't know what to do. I know that I want to protect my license. That is my number one goal. But I also feel sorry for these patients!
What in the world should I do???!?! Help me... someone, please... You all have given me good advice before... I need it now. Thanks :)
