Imagine my suprise this weekend when I get to work and find out that new policy is that the RN's will make toast for the pt trays!!!!
Yes, that's right, dietary will only send bread up and we are expected to toast it in the toasters provided to the unit. So now, I have to pick up the tray when it is dropped at the desk, take it to the pts room, take the bread all the way back to the convienetly located toaster (NOT) and bring it back.
I work in AICU, anyone think I really have the time for this malarkey??? I was really frustrated over this one and I told the charge nurse they better get some techs up here if this is what they expect. I can only hear the complaints now..."The nurse didnt make my toast right!"
If you really want to to draw the point home, tell the upper management that in order to handle and prepare food, you'll need a food handlers license from the county.
Unbelievable... But nothing should surprise me anymore.
A bit off topic but along the same lines - I recently interviewed for an ED position. Along with being told that you are not 'allowed' to call in sick, (you have to find your own replacement), I was told that when the paramedics bring patients in, the nurse is to go to the break room and bring the paramedics drinks and snacks. (Gotta keep them happy so they keep steering their ambulance towards this hospital). I got the job, but I didn't take it.
Is this now a policy for the whole hospital or just your area? Does this include the SNF or med-surg floors also?
I take AICU to be Adult or Advanced ICU. What is the acuity? Do you take ventilator patients or others who are seriously ill? Or, is this more like a 23 hour observations ICU?
We don't allow Dietary to deliver trays to the patients' rooms in the ICUs and sometimes there is a delay getting the trays passed. Usually the patients will have to eat cold food and sometimes just a piece of toast can make up for cold oatmeal and eggs. For chemo or other harsh therapy a patient could be rec'g, if toast is what they want, we'll try to get it for them and hopefully while it is still warm.
AICU is adult intensive care unit. Our pts are vented, septic, drips, CVVH, neuro all the usual ICU type pts. The only thing we do not take is active MI and post op hearts. We have a Cardiac CCU that takes those. The Progressive Care Unit in my hospital has been closed, so we keep our stepdown pts until they are ready for the floors. Our ratio is 2:1 with the critically ill pts and 4:1 with the level 2, or stepdowns.
It is an initiative for the entire hospital to assure the pts have freshly toasted bread that is warm, not the cold soggy stuff thats on the trays when it gets to the units. They never deliver to the rooms directly on my unit, its is dropped at the desk and the secretary will let the nurse know its here. We pick them up and take to the rooms. It's normally pretty quickly. If we are busy, the sec. will take it to the room if we ask.
Wow this is so crazy! Dietary can't pass my meds, or do my assessments! So why should I make the toast? I mean I have NO problem doing things like making toast or passing fluids, I really don't. I'm not above it, however to expect it...it would take away from nursing care!
Oh wait! Cafeteria style nursing. First you grab the bread and drop it in the toaster at the toaster station. Then assemble a tray, the silverware and condiments and then the med cup. Then you move to the pyxis get pt's meds and then on to the drink station. By that time the toast is ready and you can get to the pt's room just in time to say "Thank you for coming to Mc Hospital... have a nice day!"
I'm all for the wine cellar idea. Might make some of the crabby ones mellow out, man. But the visitors would complain because they didn't get any. And then the patients would want hor d'oeuvres to go with the wine. Prolly gripe about the wine list too.
And when we don't uncork it right, the Zagat rater drops us 1 star on our rating.
Crumbs! is the Great Toast Controversy still rumbling on? I thought you lot would be browned off with it my now having had a few crusty posts....
Seriously though when I trained back in the Dark Ages when Florence Nightingale was a student one of the jobs on nights was to make the porridge and boil the eggs for the patients breakfast.
Oh my word, I still hear the stories of how "back in my day we had to go out to barn and gather the eggs and milk the cows for breakfast.":uhoh3: No offence but in my day, we have to have a certain amount of post grad certified nurses or the government will be breathing down our neck or closing us down. We also have to chart for hours and cover our backsides in case somebody complains their care was not culturally safe or compassionate. Some days I'd rather be doing something different and a heck of a lot less stressful.
That was then and this is now. Happy to make you a cuppa and a bit of toast, love, I hope you don't mind waiting a moment.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Is there a competency for proper, per-policy toaster use, including a computer based training? Has the toaster been cleared for use by bio-med? If not then I don't see how an RN can be qualified to make the toast.
You betcha! We make toast! "how would you like your toast sir?"Administration is responsible for this "malarkey" The only thing we can do is get to together with fellow nurses, and document why we simply do not have time.
This thread got me thinking of the time I went to a farewell party years ago for a nurse, and there was a 90+ something lady there who'd been a nurse in WW1 (she'd been born in 1800 something). She told me they used to work 16 hour (or more) split shifts, put straw on the floor (to soak up all the blood), you had to fit in lectures on nightshift during ur sleep time, had to wash all the windows and floors, had to roll bandages, make the dinners, work out diabetic meals, serve all the hot and cold drinks, etc. Apparently nurses did everything then. I can't remember everything she said but I wish I'd written it down to put in a book. I think we do have stresses too, but of a different sort.
one of the jobs on nights was to make the porridge and boil the eggs for the patients breakfast.
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If you really want to to draw the point home, tell the upper management that in order to handle and prepare food, you'll need a food handlers license from the county.