you're here to work

ok ed nurses listen up...how often do you end up holding patients in tracking to go upstairs because no one picks up the phone or makes excuses to take the patient?

way too often for me. certain floors continually give us grief over admissions. the patients are sick or complain that they are sick and someone believes them, or must prove them wrong. either way they get admitted and this is why we are lucky enough to have jobs. i understand that getting a new patient means getting off your butt. i like to sit on my butt too. but im also a worker, and when a patient comes through our door, me and most of my crew will get up and get to work if we are not already. this is how it goes.

i see that repeat offenders will tell me that a bed is not clean, when housekeeping makes it a point to tell us its clean, and our bed tracking system says its clean. sometimes i think the floor's staff sits in the bed just to say its dirty. one day last week a specific floor continually gave us problems sending patients. bed tracking AND housekeeping supervisors both tell us that beds are clean and ready. and the floor has new excuses with every patient and every phone call. 'we changed the room number', 'that room is our only isolation room', 'that nurse is off the floor', 'we didn't know about the pt', 'the room isn't setup for that type of pt', 'we don't have the ancillary staff', 'we dont, we dont we dont'.

its ridiculous really. now although the er could go on divert, i can't remember the last time we did. and even when we are wall to wall patients, new ones keep rolling in and we just sit patients in a chair or stretcher and make up a name for that 'pt care area'. this is what we do. no nurse to pt ratio cap, no locked doors on the medic/ambulance bays. and the walkers and drop offs still keep rolling in. and in fact its my opinion that most of the legitimately sick patients actually do not call 911 and hitch rides from family friends or buses.

we are all hospital employees, we are hired to do a job, there are tons of sick patients to take care of, you are expected to work. this is the reality of our work, you were aware of that when you started, you should know that when you come in to work today. so...pick up the phone, and no excuses.