We have been having multiple issues in our unit regarding staff following standards. We have a new manager that was promoted up from staff nurse, she has been kind of harassing one of the nurses she did not like when she was staff nurse with us and has given her a couple of written warnings. All in all things are not well in our unit.
I know I can tend to be anal about my patient care, or to be fair to myself, I like taking good care of my patient and I like to follow a nurse that has taken good care of the patient. I am the type to clean out the toe jam and belly stones, I rub the backs and soak the feet and in my unit there is generally time to give good care.
One of the areas in which we have been very lacking is dating our IV's when a patient comes in. Generally, if I walk in a room and the IV is not dated I simply go back and look for the start date and put it on the IV. Generally when I come across something that is not done, I will simply do it, not say a word, and move on.
However things are not good in the unit. People are habitually late, nothing is done, IVs are not dated, nothing is done, patient care is lacking and nothing is done, there is a lot of socializing and nothing is done. When I find time and again, the same person is slacking, I speak up.
Last week I took over on a patient in which the IV was in for 6 days. I did ask the previous nurse that always complains about everyone else, how long the IV had been in and she had no clue. I looked it up in the chart and saw it had been in 6 days. I moved on, I pulled the line and put in a new one.
Today I got in report that the patient had a line in his right arm, "it looks kind of crusty but is working well" is what the nurse signing out said to me. I asked when it went in, and she did not know, looking in the chart, it had been put in on the 8th, day of admission, now 5 days in. I said to that nurse, "we have not been good about dating our IV's" she took offense and told me to write it up then, I tried to explain I was just concerned about our IVs being in so long and people not being accountable for the care that is given. I moved on but then I became kind of p***** at her attitude and I did start to write it up. At that point she launched into a verbal attack on me about how I am "always" complaining ( no, I barely talk to this person), she mentioned that she felt bad for me because I must not be sleeping well because I am up thinking of things to complain about. She went on and on, and twice I told our conversation was done. I assured I slept well because I go to bed knowing I did the best I could, I get daily compliments from my patients. I move on and if there is a good reason a co-worker did not get to something I am happy to do it, I don't like picking up the slack of slackers. Same patient had a dsg on a skin tear, for 5 days, all nurses documented "dsg D+I" , the dsg was stuck to wound and I had to soak it off, he had an AV fistula, bruit and thrill, never documented on this renal patient. My question: is it wrong of me to expect nurses to do their jobs or am I just complaining??
