Unsafe hospital rant!

[Mebzone05, BSN]

I got report from a nurse. Pt hemoglobin low, hypotensive, and dizzy. Labs were drawn hours ago. Blood ordered. I was told that the blood was ready during report. Nurse argued with me that she had too many patients and couldn't start blood. I advised nurse to start blood prior to transport. We went back and forth on the topic for a minute or so. I simply explained why the blood should be started. The other nurse refused and said that the patient was critical and the ICU needed to handle it. Pt is brought to me hypotensive, with one infiltrated IV, critically low hemoglobin, and no blood consent signed. The nurse then reported me to house sup, and I was told not to be mean to floor nurses during report. WOW!?

About a week ago, I downgraded a patient to tele. I went back to my ICU and realized that I left pt belongings in the room. I walked the belongings down to the tele room. I walk in the room, and the confused pt that I just transported is sitting on the bed rail seconds away from falling. I get the pt back in bed and hit the call light. Nobody answers. I find a tech and they tell me they will alert the nurse. I stand there for another 5 mins. I leave and find a nurse and explained to them that the patient is going to fall and I need to go back to my floor. Another 5 mins pass before the nurse finally comes into the room.

These are just two examples, I could honestly keep going.

Would you guys continue to work for a hospital that you find to be unsafe? I've worked at 3 other hospitals and I've never encountered such low standards and nurses that didn't care about their patients.

[MaxAttack, BSN, RN]

I don't want to go into a full on rant about the floors but I find the less I expect the happier I am. Floor nurses everywhere have too many patients and too much stuff to deal with and yes you have the ones that really just can't be bothered - some floors more so than others *cough* 7 South *cough*.

There's a lot of unknowns here - When were the labs noticed? When did the blood get ordered? When was the patient upgraded? Is starting blood before transport going to slow down the time it takes for the patient to get to ICU where they need to be?

I'd grab another nurse, some IV start kits, saline, and a consent form and just start working. After it settles down I'd be putting in an incident report. That's really all you can do.

[kp2016]

sigh... I get it. Yes, in an ideal world the patient should have a working IV and a spare, blood consent signed as soon as blood was ordered and blood started as soon as it is ready. Sadly this nurse probably had 6 other patients with families calling for updates, a confused patient at high risk of falls who didn't have a sitter, ER / OR calling report on the patient's that are already on the way and a bladder that is about to burst (their own that is).

"I simply explained why the blood should be started"  to the nurse who was upgrading the patient too CU is condescending. I've actually done ER and 7NeverAgain (basic med/surg, heavy, busy and chronically understaffed) at the same hospital as a travel nurse. I would take the worst day ever in the ER over 7NeverAgain any day.

While I 100% believe you when you say the care at this hospital is unsafe, I doubt it is due to the nurses not caring. I'd say it's more likely that they are grossly overworked and understaffed to the point in which high quality care is impossible. For me I finished up my time in the ER which was marginally better than 7NeverAgain,  declined another contract and started at a completely different hospital that was so much better my new co workers were repeatedly telling me to slow down and take my breaks!!