Working short? What does your hosp. do about it??

[imaRN]

Our supervisors gave us PIZZA !! ( now that's the Answer food!!!!!!!!!)(NOT)

Our nursing union just settled on a contract and this weekend instead of catching rays on the picket line (which would have been much SAFER and much more fun) we had a weekend of "Hell on Wabash Ave"( the entire hosp. was short) a direct result of tremendously shortstaffing.The care was poor and risks of pt. safety were dramatically increased.There was no management brought in to at least attempt to help!(this was not the first and I am afraid not the last time) oh yea we filled out the paperwork Assignment Against Objection Forms. I just wonder how much more we can take and how much more our patients can survive?? We have closed beds, (due to staffing)They need to close more,,,,,,in an attempt to use humor to cope we were saying, "I demand a re-count and I want a re-vote" of course it did not work for AL Gore.....What is happening where you work???imaRN

[RNforLongTime]

Well, at the last hospital I worked in Erie PA we always worked short staffed--7or 8 patients a piece with NO nursing assistant. Sometimes we had 9 pt's on day shift. The Nursing Supervisor would sometimes order Pizza Hut for us when we worked short! What a slap in the face! My last night at this place, there were 21 patients for 3 RN's and NO nurses aide. Everybody knew we were so short staffed. Their reply was sorry you'll just have to muddle through somehow. there is no help available anywhere. The really bad part was that one RN working that night had one fresh post-op pateint with every tube imaginable plus one patient with a severe nosebleed who was getting 4 units of Fresh frozen plasma and another patient who was having severe rectal bleeding form a GI bleed in addition to 4 other patients! Talk about dangerous!! Needless to say, I Filed an incident report regarding this unsafe staffing situation! I figured I didn't have anything to lose as it was my last night working there!

Now at the hospital I work at now in Ohio is a unionized facility which is represented by the ONA. We have mandadtory overtime. That is the only thing I do not like at this place. But I guess it's a little better than working short staffed. Which is the lesser of two evils? Our contract expires at the end of October this year and contact negotioations will begin soon or so I am told. The big issue at hand will be mandatory overtime and if the hospital refuses to eliminate it then I believe that we will strike as well! We have RN's leaving right and left so someone gets mandated every shift--not necessarily to stay another 8 hours but to be "on-call" for which we get paid $3.25 an hour. I do not want to strike but will support one should it become necessary!

Kelly :)

[RNforLongTime]

Well, at the last hospital I worked in Erie PA we always worked short staffed--7or 8 patients a piece with NO nursing assistant. Sometimes we had 9 pt's on day shift. The Nursing Supervisor would sometimes order Pizza Hut for us when we worked short! What a slap in the face! My last night at this place, there were 21 patients for 3 RN's and NO nurses aide. Everybody knew we were so short staffed. Their reply was sorry you'll just have to muddle through somehow. there is no help available anywhere. The really bad part was that one RN working that night had one fresh post-op pateint with every tube imaginable plus one patient with a severe nosebleed who was getting 4 units of Fresh frozen plasma and another patient who was having severe rectal bleeding form a GI bleed in addition to 4 other patients! Talk about dangerous!! Needless to say, I Filed an incident report regarding this unsafe staffing situation! I figured I didn't have anything to lose as it was my last night working there!

Now at the hospital I work at now in Ohio is a unionized facility which is represented by the ONA. We have mandadtory overtime. That is the only thing I do not like at this place. But I guess it's a little better than working short staffed. Which is the lesser of two evils? Our contract expires at the end of October this year and contact negotioations will begin soon or so I am told. The big issue at hand will be mandatory overtime and if the hospital refuses to eliminate it then I believe that we will strike as well! We have RN's leaving right and left so someone gets mandated every shift--not necessarily to stay another 8 hours but to be "on-call" for which we get paid $3.25 an hour. I do not want to strike but will support one should it become necessary!

Kelly :)

[Genista, BSN, RN]

We worked short of licensed staff today. What happened was we had no breaks. We got a nurse aid for a few hours, but that's not the same as licensed staff. As soon as we discharged any pts, admitting was wanting to admit more, even though we were short & nobody got a lunch break. You bet I am charging my employer for my time.I earned time & a half for a "no rest period" (that's 1 hour time & a half pay for a 30 min missed lunch), plus 30 min overtime on top of that. There is a real problem with getting enough staff for the entire county-wide area here. And when the hospital calls us on our days off, nobody wants to work extra. Sometimes we do get extra help, but it's getting harder to find any volunteers.