Weekend/Night Time Hospital Frustrations

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

I understand that people often go into medical specialties to get out of the on call/long hours of other hospital areas of work. However, lately it seems like our hospital, outside of 9-5, is really little more than a glorified clinic. Can't get a specialist to save a life, literally. We've had patients admitted in complete heart block on a Friday night that can just wait until Monday for their transvenous pacer. I had a patient admitted for "emergent dialysis" at 8pm one night, who died overnight before ever even getting dialysis access because apparently emergent dialysis meant when dayshift arrived. And most recently I had a patient who needed a brain death scan to be an organ donor. Well, they wouldn't come in on the weekend and the patient died in the early hours of Monday morning. So a family was robbed of the opportunity to make a gift of life when their loved one's life was tragically cut short, not to mention the patients whose lives could have been prolonged or saved because of the potential donation. And no one is going to take a call from an ICU nurse overnight/weekend to do anything differently, I've tried. So frustrating that patient care really isn't the highest priority for most organizations anymore. 

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

(((HUGS)))  to you for dealing with this organization. 

I continue to go to health system I worked in with 24/7 CT scan and specialists while perceived "better" health system closed one hospital inpatient services 4 months ago and state Dept Health just closed another of systems hospital ED's due to staffing issues ( while owner health system trying to close all inpatient there too -- despite 1,200 births/year).

[klone, MSN, RN]

That sucks. I wonder if the staffing shortages are affecting everything, not just nursing.

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

3 hours ago, klone said:

I wonder if the staffing shortages are affecting everything, not just nursing.

I know that staffing is an issue everywhere but I'm convinced that these were 100% greed/money issues. Because we CAN provide these interventions, transferring to our larger associated hospital that really does things 24/7 would fall on our dime. And so they decide to take the gamble and hope that people will hold on until the scheduled staff are available. It's not that there's a shortage per se, they have no intention of ever having things like nuclear medicine, MRI, interventional cardiology, etc staffed in the off hours. Because saving a couple lives here and there isn't going to cover the costs of having people available. But I feel like there should be emergency contingency plans for those people that we could save, or they need to send them where they can get the care they need. I do my job because I love taking care of critically ill patients. But looking into the eyes of family members when my skills have become useless because I don't have the tools needed to save their family member, or do what should be done, is just too much sometimes.