War on Nurses

[jeron]

Australia is now using EN = LPN in a full-time 18 month course to cover all the basics in wards freeing up RN's for assisting doctors on rounds,wound care etc etc. Due to Covid-19 vaccination mandate hundreds of nurses have walked away and still are leaving big holes in all facilities. Until March 2022 all elective surgery in Australia has been cancelled to combat staff shortages around the country. Many Nurses are taking less stressful positions after being over-worked 16+hr shifts and still can't keep up. Ambulances ramping for 6 hours plus and emergency calls taking upwards of 1-3hr response time due to people ringing up with symptoms of covid clogging the system.All Education facilities here are profit run for training Nurses on all levels and accepting 15 students of which 50% actually pass and either continue onto Higher Education levels not interested in working long demanding shifts for low pay. Our system has crumbled yet we have only just surpassed 1 million Omicron cases here in Australia out of a 29 million population so our system is only just as strong as the number of Nurses,Doctors available to run all departments who aren't being infected with covid-19.Burnt out or won't get vaccinated so left. I started out as an EN before becoming an RN Student so I'm doing an extra 18 months of learning to make me the best Nurse I can be as I love working in Hospitals and the more challeging the day is the better I love it. 

[Terri Holland RN]

Australia I’ve read and watched on documentaries is suppose to have the most efficient healthcare system.  How do you think that will compare to US systems which is still for  profit? Most hospitals even teaching facilities have to make a profit and staffing shortages are not always priority. 

[Terri Holland RN]

Perseverance  will get you through and best of luck in your studies. Can tell you have realistic  understanding of what to expect. 

[jeron]

Thanks ? Looking forward to getting out there. 

[cgw5364, ADN]

I have 30 years nursing experience. I worked with some wonderful LPN's in my career including one that showed me how to be a nurse as a new grad. I have also experienced being the only RN on a floor with LPN's. I was not only responsible for my patient's I was responsible for the LPN's patient's IV meds and assessments and being in charge. This was on a mother baby unit and we had a lot of fresh C/S that required PCA's and IV pushes. The LPN's I worked with were in ADN school and they were wonderful to work with. It was just a lot for me to be responsible for. I am sure there are some older nurses that can relate with this situation. 

 

[VolkRN]

On 1/9/2022 at 3:57 PM, dareese said:

This is a very interesting thread regarding the downfall of healthcare in the  70s which I was unaware of.  Who would have ever thought that it would come to this, our current state of affairs.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
 

The ramifications from that time period have dramatically changed this country and mostly in a bad way

[Terri Holland RN]

Thank you for sharing. This is a very interesting article and sequence of events. Embarrassing for our profession and country. We need to do our part to make things better for the generation. 

 

[Terri Holland RN]

Agree and have been in the same situation. Enjoyed and respected all the LVN’s, but didn’t like the extra stress of responsibility. Ends up being more work and feeling like you can’t keep up. Have also worked in larger teaching hospitals where they utilize LVN’s, ADN’s and BSN’s but each Nurse is responsible for their on group of patients. This seems to work well verses team Nursing think it was called. RN in Charge, takes less or no patients & is able to assist with skills an LVN can not administer. 

[CKPM2RN, ASN, EMT-P]

On 1/7/2022 at 7:24 AM, dareese said:

I agree that a shorter education may be a problem.  But what other options are there?  Maybe it can be a stepped approach like LPN where the responsibility is less.

From how I read the article this old-time approach created LPN-type nurses. Could one of these licensed nurses not take supplemental education down the line to become RN, or more? And it would be my personal dream to have a bunch of LPNs working alongside the RNs in every unit. The work with each patient could be assigned accordingly but the complete workload would be broken up into manageable partitions.  

[dareese, MSN, RN]

Sure.  I believe that there are LPN to RN programs.  I enjoyed working with LPNs at the beginning of my nursing career.  I was the charge nurse and the LPNs worked under me.  I did not have to spend time directly supervising them as they were competent and had their own duties.  We each had divided tasks among us and the system worked well.  Fast-forward to now and my last inpatient employer did not hire LPN's.  I enjoyed taking care of my own patients but it was not in entirety as I still had CNA's working on my team.  However, there were times that I felt like I was drowning in nursing responsibility with nobody to help me.  Especially regarding phone triage as our phones rang continuously and the CNAs could not answer any of the calls or questions from family members, etc.  Between charting and answering the phone, my time was pretty well taken up with these tasks.  It was discouraging and frustrating.  If I could have shared nurisng duties, it would have taken the pressure off of my shoulders somewhat.

 

[guest1143647]

On 1/10/2022 at 11:17 AM, dareese said:

I agree about utilizing home care more.  I still can't understand why insurance is willing to pay for hospital services but home care reimbursement is very limited.  It seems to be a win-win to be in the comfort of your own home when ill especially for an elderly patient.  It has to be cheaper for the insurance companies and medicare than hospitalization.  We are dealing with this issue right now with 2 of our parents.

Homecare has an even more severe shortage of nurses than hospitals. Home care is brutal and low paying. My gosh the paperwork alone is painful. Oasis

[Terri Holland RN]

OMG…yes yes yes! Home care paperwork is brutal and basically no training. Just started with home care Company and only training is some online tutorials. Appreciate recommendations on favorite home care charting books and Medical Coding too. Hard to know when ordering online except by reading a lot of reviews.