goodbye to good care

i haven't ranted about the state of the unit lately.  be prepared.

what is wrong with people!?!  seriously.  would it kill management to staff us appropriately?  it is just ridiculous.  5 of the past 8 days we have been short.  we only have 4 nurses on the schedule for PMs this week.  and those of us who are left are killing ourselves.

we all sit there charting an hour after our shift ends
patient care sucks
no one has time for anything
people are unhappy.

i have 5 patients and am precepting and am charge and am taking the admits whenever i can because i'm afraid that if i give them to these people who are so ridiculously stressed they will either start to cry or quit.

they will quit, like everyone else is quitting.  and can i really blame them?  no.  who wouldn't want to go be a nurse who lasers hair off people's legs for more money and way less stress?  is it any surprise that we've lost 2 more nurses this week alone?

no.  it's not.  do you know why?

PEOPLE CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS!!!!

it makes me feel like there is a forest creature in my chest trying to claw its way out.  CONSTANT phone calls.  ignoring my coworkers who are asking for help because i'm drowning myself.  getting 3 admits called at once and having to give them to people who are so far behind that they're already in tears.  running all day just to do the bare minimum.  always hearing that this score is low and this form is not getting done, and wondering how on earth i'm going to squeeze even one more thing into a day.  and then telling this to management, and having them just stare at me with blank looks like they can't even fathom what i'm saying.

when i punched out tonight, i left one of my nurses with all of her charting left to do.  i asked her why, and she told me that she felt so bad about the care that she gave yesterday, that she had to really focus on the patients tonight and worry about the charting later.

that is not ok.  NONE of this is ok, or safe, or the type of care that i would like to give people.

it's not ok to walk into patient's room and find them with teeth that obviously haven't been brushed for many days.  it's not ok to find undocumented, hospital-acquired pressure ulcers.  it's not ok to turn a patient and find a dressing that hasn't been changed for a week.  yet these are all things that happened yesterday alone.

and can you really blame people?  yes.  but when you only have so much to give, what matters most?  when acuity is ridiculously high and resources are low and expectations are unrealistic, what are the things that you skip?  what are the corners that you cut?

because the corners ARE being cut.

it's the only way to survive.

and that is just sad.