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!"
Toasters are a banned item in the hospital where I work. I keep threatening to hide one somewhere for personal use. I hate the dry, cold toast that they have the audacity to charge $1 for 2 slices down in the cafeteria. Plus I would save a fortune if I could make my own toast and Ego Waffles.
I am not sure you want ICU clients eating toast anyways, seems like a choking hazard to me.
That is beyond crazy. Like nursing staff have time for that. It is one thing if a patient wants some to settle their stomach or wants to try something light after being NPO. I just can't see the nurse toasting bread, buttering it, putting jelly on it, delivering it, and then a patient saying "but I HATE grape jelly! I NEED strawberry jam!" (had one patient do that already!) while there are real nursing issues going on. And yet doing this for the whole floor! Mornings will be tied up just making toast, assuming there would be one toaster per floor/unit.
I think someone needs to "accidentally" and repeatedly break the toaster on each floor until toast stops being offered for breakfast or dietary is given the job again. Can dietary come do our med pass for us if we make their toast?
I'm sure all it will take will be the aroma of overdone toast before this gets handed back to the experts (I don't know nothing 'bout toasting no bread. Mz Scarlett...)
Used to work on a unit that didn't have an automatic coffee maker for the families. It got so annoying having to make coffee and listen to the complaints about the coffee. I don't drink coffee! I don't own a coffee maker! Of course the coffee sucks! If you want a nurse, come to the hospital. If you want coffee, go to Starbucks. I certainly don't go into a coffee shop and complain about how badly they manage patient care!
I'm thinking that burning the toast a few times and setting off the fire alarms might "cure" admin of this BS. It will only take one nurse trying to toast and find they get busy with a code or other urgent matter to "forget" the toast is on.
How much do they pay these people to make up this hairbrained ideas?
However, I don't know if dietary would have the time to do this either because they like to short staff in that department too.
Good point, but well, sucks to be them then! When the nursing staff is short-staffed (which is of course, all the time,) we don't get to ask dietary to come up and pass medications or chart assessments. At some point, nurses have to stop being expected to do EVERYTHING that nobody else wants to do in the name of "holistic care" or "primary nursing" or whatever BS that they want to call, "The nurses won't fight back, make them do it."
I find this oddly hilarious. As an aide I can't tell you how many times I've made someone toast in the middle of the night, left in the toaster happily toasting to answer a call light and then come back to it cold and overly toasted because I forgot about it.
Doesn't the kitchen have a fancy machine that they can run bread through that makes toast in bulk? That's what all the resteraunts do.
Gracious Heavens! RN's making toast! Man the barricades
My ward has been doing this for many years. So far there have been no fatalities.
That may be the case for the UK. This is the USA a lawsuit or fatality will follow shortly. Trust me I can see someone suing over a piece of burnt toast. Better yet raggedy toaster from the 1970s sparks & sets O2 tank ablazing.
Specializes in Plastics. General Surgery. ITU. Oncology.
Quite. Toast is clearly a serious hazard in the healthcare environment.
I think national guidelines governing sharpness of crust, crumb choking potential and butter dripping co-ordinates outlining the exact slipping risk should be published ASAP.
I would absolutely refuse to do this. There is a catering department and it is insulting to expect nursing staff to have to make toast. For starters, the ward environment is hardly appropriate as a food preparation area. You give in on this one and what will it be next week?
Can dietary come do our med pass for us if we make their toast?
It will only take one nurse trying to toast and find they get busy with a code or other urgent matter to "forget" the toast is on. 
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LuckyinKY
229 Posts
Toasters are a banned item in the hospital where I work. I keep threatening to hide one somewhere for personal use. I hate the dry, cold toast that they have the audacity to charge $1 for 2 slices down in the cafeteria. Plus I would save a fortune if I could make my own toast and Ego Waffles.
I am not sure you want ICU clients eating toast anyways, seems like a choking hazard to me.