Vanderbilt Medical Center to have nurses cleaning up

[DidiRN]

"Cleaning the room after the case, including pulling your trash and mopping the floor, are all infection-prevention strategies. And it's all nursing, and it's all surgical tech. You may not believe that, but even Florence Nightingale knew that was true," said a hospital administrator to staff in a video obtained by the Channel 4 I-Team."

http://www.wsmv.com/story/23364976/vanderbilt-medical-center-to-have-nurses-cleaning-up

[wooh, BSN, RN]

I love the part of "we all have to pull together." I've noted that in my facility, the "work together" card is always thrown out when it truly means, "Nurses are going to have to do even more work." Seems to be universally true.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

I don't think this will hurt the hospitals wallet one bit. Whatever it saves in housekeeping expenses by having nurses do the job instead, will go into the pocket of the big-wigs that decided to come up with this HORRIBLE idea!

The hospital can "save money" by cutting jobs all they want, but every time they do some exec seems to get a nice raise and a hefty bonus!

I think the gov't should get smart and put a law into place that if a hospital needs to "save money" by delegating the jobs to another department (thereby laying off many employees), cutting out departments as a whole (closing down ER's, etc), and the like, then the hospital execs can NOT get a pay raise or bonus for a specified period of time. I also think that if a hospital is in such dire straights as to need to cut out departments or have mass layoffs, then the hospital should be required to have their financials overlooked by an independent third party (not by the gov't or by the hospital itself) to see what (if anything) has caused this need for lay-offs and where the hospital can save money to keep those jobs if possible.

Sorry for the rant...I just hate when hospitals claim financial hardship and you know that the exec will get a raise shortly after....

:yes: Agreed!

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

Do we have a name of "a hospital administrator"? Because I didn't see it in the article. Perhaps we could all write letters to "a hospital administrator" Because we can bet "a hospital administrator" isn't tightening his or her belt or doing anything at all to all pull together.

Yeah, I really don't want my nurse coming fresh from scrubbing a c-diff patients commode, you know?

[sneeds]

https://allnurses.com/nursing-activism-healthcare/big-pay-cut-849659.html

[chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

While I think the Vandy policy is ridiculous and the Florence Nightingale reference craven and self-serving, I really can't blame them for doing it. Policies like this are the natural outgrowth of the nursing surplus and I suspect strongly that Vanderbuilt will be replicated by other hospitals in fairly short order. If nurses don't like it, well there are plenty of nurses out there who will put up with it.

Productivity seems to be the key - nurses can always be replaced. Hopefully, this shortsighted policy will not put patients at undue risk. Ironically, the only way the policy will be reversed is if it does.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Cleaning just isn't going to get done. When it comes to patient care or cleaning patient care is always going to win. And I doubt many nurses' schedule leaves much free time as it is.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Merged both threads on this topic into one.

[Nicurn225]

In the words of Sweet Brown,

Ain't nobody got time for that!!

[Novo]

Something tells me if this were to be proposed to physicians, it wouldn't fly. RNs are university educated professionals and should be treated and utilized as such. I don't live in the U.S. but I really hope the nurses that work there walk out that sends a clear message that this is UNACCEPTABLE.

[Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN]

Next thing you know, the nurses will be baking cookies too!

[Scarlette Wings]

To me Unions really are just another task master and very controlling. We should be able to advocate for ourselves.

Another thought is that nurses and staff would not only have patient rooms to turn over and clean, but there is an entire hospital of areas to clean that have nothing to do directly with patient care. We would end up cleaning every thing from the public use rest rooms, gift shop, lobby, waiting rooms. There are just as many hallways to have floor stripped and waxed and non-patient care areas that require frequent cleaning and who is going to do those? Is the ED staff and ICU staff going to have to rotate out to do frequent checks and cleaning of the waiting room and male and female bathrooms? Where is the line drawn? There are grounds to keep clean and snack rooms visitors use. I worked where it was private pay and yes, at night and on holidays we were the housekeepers. We had to clean any messes, fix and clean after flooded toilets, we had a mop and bucket for use, and we also had to do small maintenance tasks. But I also have to say that the facility staffed better for patients than anywhere else I have ever worked.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Something tells me if this were to be proposed to physicians, it wouldn't fly. RNs are university educated professionals and should be treated and utilized as such. I don't live in the U.S. but I really hope the nurses that work there walk out that sends a clear message that this is UNACCEPTABLE.

But physicians actually control entry to their profession. They don't allow every school on the corner to allow an accelerated entry program into becoming a physician. Nurses do. And we've allowed ourselves to be easily replaced. THIS is why we should have made a BSN the minimum entry (with grandfathering in all existing RNs.) But instead we argue amongst ourselves about how "Well I know a lazy new-grad BSN and a hard-working ADN with 30 years experience" and "But some people DREAMMMMM of being a nurse and don't have time for a BSN" and other such BS and that means nurses are being churned out on every street corner. Physicians refuse to do this kind of BS and hospitals can't easily replace them. Nurses refuse to this? There's a sea of new grads waiting in the wings.