Urgggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!

chenoaspirit, ASN, RN · Oct 8, 2008

That is exactly how our floor is on nightshift. One night, the other floor had 3 assistants with 12 patients (2 assistants were PCAs which do the blood draws). We had 26 patients and ONE assistant who could NOT draw blood. The nursing coordinator wouldnt send one to us. Our nurses get pulled all the time to help out other floors, but there is NEVER one to come help us. Now this was on night shift. I work days now and its MUCH better. I dont understand why nightshift gets treated like that, and why med-surg is the floor to get the shaft.

NurseAmy · Oct 8, 2008

Bella, Does your DON have 24 hour accountability? Is she the person who is ultimately responsible for staffing ? Because if she is, I would remind her of that and document everything. And who is her boss, surely she reports to someone? Because if she is telling you that you can handle this crazy workload then I would want it documented for the record that you had voiced your concerns up the chain of command and that you had made the powers that be aware of your concerns. If your state nursing board has practice consultants available to contact I would contact them ASAP and find out if you have any kind of safe harbour clauses in your nurse practice act, etc, and what recourse you have if you accept an unsafe assignment under protest. And I would start keeping an "oh ****" file for myself after every shift, detailing all the events of that night, if I called the DON for help and her response, etc. Document everything.

I wonder if anyone in your local state news media would be interested in an anonymous tip for an inside scoop on the staffing levels of their local hospital?...Yeah, I am from the South and a bit of a hell raiser. Nothing like a bit of a scandal and public embarrassement to a hospital board of directors and CEO to get something done!

All that being said, you have to decide if you are willing to fight the good fight, or if you are better off to just hand in your notice after your next shift and find yourself a different job. You are in the beginning of your career, it might be time to bow out of that place gracefully rather than raise hell. I can see the virtue of just moving on to a better job-you are young, about to get married, etc. You have many years of nursing ahead of you and you have to pick your battles.

Good luck to you!!

Bella36RN · Oct 8, 2008

That is exactly how our floor is on nightshift. One night, the other floor had 3 assistants with 12 patients (2 assistants were PCAs which do the blood draws). We had 26 patients and ONE assistant who could NOT draw blood. The nursing coordinator wouldnt send one to us. Our nurses get pulled all the time to help out other floors, but there is NEVER one to come help us. Now this was on night shift. I work days now and its MUCH better. I dont understand why nightshift gets treated like that, and why med-surg is the floor to get the shaft.

they refuse to put any nursing assistant or anything with us... we had 31 patients the other night and they still had no help for us.

Bella, Does your DON have 24 hour accountability? Is she the person who is ultimately responsible for staffing ? Because if she is, I would remind her of that and document everything. And who is her boss, surely she reports to someone? Because if she is telling you that you can handle this crazy workload then I would want it documented for the record that you had voiced your concerns up the chain of command and that you had made the powers that be aware of your concerns. If your state nursing board has practice consultants available to contact I would contact them ASAP and find out if you have any kind of safe harbour clauses in your nurse practice act, etc, and what recourse you have if you accept an unsafe assignment under protest. And I would start keeping an "oh ****" file for myself after every shift, detailing all the events of that night, if I called the DON for help and her response, etc. Document everything.
I wonder if anyone in your local state news media would be interested in an anonymous tip for an inside scoop on the staffing levels of their local hospital?...Yeah, I am from the South and a bit of a hell raiser. Nothing like a bit of a scandal and public embarrassement to a hospital board of directors and CEO to get something done!
All that being said, you have to decide if you are willing to fight the good fight, or if you are better off to just hand in your notice after your next shift and find yourself a different job. You are in the beginning of your career, it might be time to bow out of that place gracefully rather than raise hell. I can see the virtue of just moving on to a better job-you are young, about to get married, etc. You have many years of nursing ahead of you and you have to pick your battles.
Good luck to you!!

our DON does do the staffing, everybody thinks she is "all that" so she answers to herself. she refuses any kind of help and mainly only schedules 3 night shift nurses a night. One of our RNs got transfered to ER (leaving us 2 RNs on night shift). So, now we have 2 RNs and we are having to do 7 12 hour shifts and 7 off. I'm tired. :zzzzz