unoriented contract staff filling staffing shortages

Nurses Safety

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I work in a facility that is allowing inexperienced non oriented staff to work alone e.g. a nurse showed up to work at 4pm her shift started at 5pm and it was her first time ever in the building and she hadn't done clinical nursing since 1996. She had not been oriented to the work space nor to our procedures. This issue was brought up throughout the supervisors and even to the director of nursing and I was told it was ok. Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy and what an opportunity for errors and lawsuits?

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

Crazy indeed. This topic perhaps could be moved to the general nursing board where you might get more responses. This board is for introductions. Glad you decided to join up.

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I work in a facility that is allowing inexperienced non oriented staff to work alone e.g. a nurse showed up to work at 4pm her shift started at 5pm and it was her first time ever in the building and she hadn't done clinical nursing since 1996. She had not been oriented to the work space nor to our procedures. This issue was brought up throughout the supervisors and even to the director of nursing and I was told it was ok. Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy and what an opportunity for errors and lawsuits?

Hi, I am new to this thread but have been a nurse for 30 years +, I am a nurse educator as well. I can tell you that this a dangerous situation and warrants some concern on the part of the hospitals liability as well as yours. Are you in a charge capacity or supervisory capacity?

You should make sure that you have your own , what type of unit are you working? It is the responsibility of the hospital to ensure that all employees that are paid by the hospital to be appropriated oriented to the hospital policies and procedures, (basic of course), and then validate that orientation and training for unit specific procedures. This is a requirement by the Joint Commission. Is the hospital a Joint comission certified? The hospital is playing with fire :angryfire

Sincerely Donna

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

Wow, this is a very scary situation indeed!

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Wow, this is a very scary situation indeed!

Speaking of scary situation, how many of you carry additional additional to what the hospital may provide ?? Just curious to know and who do you have it with, as I am trying to add additional because in hospice care which is where I am currently employed I don't really think that they have that much to cover us. Of course, the only comfort I guess that I would have is that I know that my patients are terminal, and families know that. However, we have a lot of "freedom" in that many times we can tell our physicians what we want for our patients and they will order. I still makes me nervous.

Donna

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what if the hospital has you workingin the MRI dept sedating pts with versed and you are not Acls certified and your agency knows you aren't?

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Specializes in Utilization Management.
what if the hospital has you workingin the MRI dept sedating pts with versed and you are not Acls certified and your agency knows you aren't?

I would have to refuse to do procedures that I am not qualified to do. Furthermore, I'd be spittin' mad at my agency for toying with me like that, and I'd probably have to have a real strong heart-to-heart (i.e., change my assignment or I quit) with my recruiter.

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I would have to refuse to do procedures that I am not qualified to do. Furthermore, I'd be spittin' mad at my agency for toying with me like that, and I'd probably have to have a real strong heart-to-heart (i.e., change my assignment or I quit) with my recruiter.

thanks for the advice, my agency stated the only thing i HAD TO DO WAS START iV'S. i WON'T TAKE THE ASSIGNMENT. iT'S TO RISKY :angryfire

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At the LTC facility where I work, (I've been a CNA there for 3 years and just passed PN boards) the staff has been so disturbed by new management that 60% have left (fired randomly or quit without notice). They're filling the spaces with agency nurses. They may well be very competent nurses, but they recieve no orientation (obviously). A resident got into a physical fight with another resident (both were confused, and on a locked unit) and got between them and asked another CNA to find the nurse. The CNA returned to tell me that the agency nurse said to 'watch them'. I have 10 residents who require care and I cannot sit with two of them all afternoon to make sure they aren't fighting, and furthermore, someone was quickly developing a black eye, which should probably be charted. I asked the CNA to sit with the pair and had to go find the supervisor and ask her to help get it taken care of properly.

Like I said, the nurse was no doubt knowledgeable, but working on the locked unit requires a bit more preparation than, "Oh, you're from agency? I'm glad you're here. The code to get out of the unit is blah blah blah. The aides are really great here, they'll help you."

I'm happy to help, but it is not my job to say, "So and So has IM ativan ordered, can you please come give it." , and a lot of the nurses from agencies would prefer that I didn't anyway. Our admins would save us a lot of grief and themselves a lot of money if they weren't doing things this way. We've had agency nurses refuse to work when they discovered where they were assigned -- shouldn't they have been told what the work was when they were offered the assignment?

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