What would you do?

I am a travel nurse, first assignment, a situation arose last night and I want your comments.

hx: the floor I work on, is a 6 bed med/surg unit recently opened and 75 % staffed with travel nurses, but still understaffed via hospital standards.

situation: I went in last night and was the only nurse scheduled for the 6 bed unit, no tech either just me. The pts are not bad mainly observation and pain control. lucky a nurse did call and say she would come in at 11p and a nurse from the fast track came over to help me 7p to 11p. This has happened to several nurses in the past with no help offering to come in.

My question: Even with the easy pts and only 6 beds, is this safe? what if a code were needed and you were the only person on the floor? The hospital does not seem to be worried about situations like this but will try hard to at least give the one RN a tech most of the time. As a travel nurse, if you walked into this situation, what would you do? Can you as a travel nurse refuse the situation? Would my license be on the line should something go wrong and the hospital knew the situation?

Not complaining, I like the hospital and staff and actually just extended my contract. Just want advise.

Totally unacceptable! What happens if you go to the bathroom? You can forget lunch. There is no way that you should be on that unit w/out any kind of relief person. I would call my agency stat, and i would put things in writing- everytime that i notified the hospital and agency of the situation. Others may not agree, but this is one time when I may not accept report if i get to the unit and am told i will be the only one there.

Totally unacceptable! What happens if you go to the bathroom? You can forget lunch. There is no way that you should be on that unit w/out any kind of relief person. I would call my agency stat, and i would put things in writing- everytime that i notified the hospital and agency of the situation. Others may not agree, but this is one time when I may not accept report if i get to the unit and am told i will be the only one there.

Couldn't have said it better!