What to do???

[registerednut1221]

I have worked for over two years at a facility that I love. I love my co-workers. I love the docs. I love the type of care we provide. It's a long term acute care facility and we get a lot of VERY complicated patients. We also have a 10 bed ccu (this is where I normally work). It is always interesting and I have learned so much there, but over the past couple of months we have developed some "management" issues. I'm starting to feel as though it is time for me to move on, but at the same time I feel as though I am being forced out of my "home." We're short-staffed. What's new, right? How about 7 very complicated patients per nurse and no cna? 8 ccu patients for two nurses and no cna. Is it this bad everywhere? ALL of our patients are on contact isolation ALWAYS (facility policy). We've gone to our supervisor, manager and DON with no positive results. One nurse told our DON that due to our heavy patient load we are unable to provide quality care for our patients and there is no time to chart. His response was "When have you ever known a nurse to lose their job over charting?"!!! I have been working 60+ hours per week since January with no end in sight. Now, the powers that be want to further increase our census and we're losing 2 nurses already. The docs are frustrated, pt/ot and the nurses are all at each others throats and management doesn't seem to care. I've been thinking about scheduling a meeting with the hospital president, but I doubt it would do any good. He's as clueless as the rest of them.

[snowfreeze, BSN, RN]

A nice e-mail to the local newspaper offering an inside look at this facility might do the trick. Especially if you are looking to leave anyway.

To fix the problem and stay there, ask to chat with the Board of Directors and the facility Medical director and see if you get any response. If they seem to know what is happening and don't seem to care, back to the local media.

Just a suggestion.

Many times being a patient advocate is frustrating but if everything you do can honestly be attributed to being a patient advocate then you will land on top in the end.

Oh yeh, document, document, document and keep copies of every phone conversation, personal conversation, e-mail and mailed information. Times, dates, names etc. etc. etc.