What to do now?? (long)

I have been a RN for about 2 years in a very busy emergency room. To begin with, we are almost always short-staffed. On the particular night in question, I initially had 4 patients in the critical care area. The area is split into 2 sides, one side having 10 beds, the other having 7.

I happened to be on the side with 10 beds, of which 9 were occupied. The other side had only 3 patients with one having a clean room and ready to go to the floor.

The idea is that I would split 5/5 with one other nurse; however, she had 2 very critical (ICU holding) patients so I was not able to give her report on 2 patients that I already had as well as pick up the other 3 from the nurse who was leaving. That left her with 3 patients, 2 of whom were very critical, and me with 6 patients, one of whom was critical. There were 2 nurses on the other side, and between them they were caring for the 3 patients over there, none of whom were critical.

I initially spoke to the charge nurse about moving one of the other nurses over to our side, (because really there are supposed to be 3 nurses there anyway), and the two nurses on the other side were opposed to this so nothing happened.

An hour later, I received yet another patient who had to be intubated, go to ct scan, etc., still received no help from the charge although I requested assistance again.

Finally I went over to the other side where the charge nurse was with another nurse and said, "why can't one of these nurses come to help us on our side???" This is usually what is done in a situation like this, but this charge nurse deferred to the other two nurses, neither of whom, wanted to go to the other side??!! This certainly is not safe patient care and the whole mess could have been avoided if they had just moved one nurse to the other side as they have done regularly in the past when something like this has happened.

I notified the manager the next day about this. Then I get called into her office about 10 days later and am told by her and the assistant nurse manager that my peers do not like working with me, I am intimidating, and "out of control".

Of course, this is the first time I have ever heard any of these terms used to describe my behavior. I even asked for an example of me being intimidating and out of control and neither the nurse manager nor my assistant nurse manager were able to give one.

The other thing I should mention is that both the nurse manger and assistant nurse manager are new in these positions. The nurse manager "hand picked" the assistant nurse manager, who has never been in a management position prior to this, and has no experience with management. The assistant nurse manager has managed to eliminate at least 4 nurses who had been there for years by conveniently changing the circumstances to fit her side. She had announced that "there will be a lot of changes around here, and I am here to stay" in the first staff meeting she held.

She is manipulative and right now we have 3 travelers who are not going to be re-contracting because they refuse to continue to work with her. I feel as if I am being targeted next because not only did this meeting have nothing to do with being constructive about the issues they brought up, but also this woman has barely spoken to me since last summer when there was an incident that I confronted her about, and while in this meeting she kept calling me, honey, etc. and acting like she was friendly with me.

We do not have a union and I am not sure what to do next. I do know that I have spoken to a few of the nurses I work with and they all feel that she is bullying me and they also said that I am not "out of control" nor am I "intimidating".

Someone else I mentioned this to that knows the assistant nurse manager told me that she is trying to get me to quit and knows that I will start second guessing myself after hearing that no one likes to work with me, etc.

Any advice is welcomed!

Thanks,

A