1. Staff nurses at my hospital are so distraught over the poor ratios, the rotten nursing care, and the burn out of staff that they are staying over at the end of their shifts unpaid to fill incident reports re: near misses and errors. They mention the poor staffing levels and their direct effect on patient in most of these reports. They have been doing this for years but it has accelerated in the last several months.
Response from Management: Completely ignored.
2. Staff Nurses have requested meetings with the powers that be to talk to them and explain what is going on and how dangerous it all is to the patients and nurses themselves. Have requested that some of these guys spend a shift shadowing a nurse to get a feel for how crazy it all is down there on the floors. Have requested that they look into research regarding Nurse patient ratios and how shitty ratios run hospitals into the ground and really fucks patients and their nurses up.
Response from Management: Completely Ignored.
3. Nurse Managers throughout the hospital get together and send a letter to the powers that be trying to reason with them and explain what is happening to nurses and patients as a result of their refusal to hire and staff the wards. These are the nurse managers who help out on the floor.
Response from Management: Completely Ignored.
4. Apparently Consultants have come together (ages ago) and written to the bosses because the staffing on the wards is even scaring the shit out of them.
Response from managers: Nothing.
Goodness me even a "we understand your position and are trying to think of ways to improve the situation" would be greatly appreciated. Throw us a bone for christs sake.
5. Five Staff nurses (3 on my ward) have left to take lower paid jobs outside of health care. This has been over the last few months alone. I have lost count of the ones before that. Three have obtained teaching assistant jobs. Two have headed for the supermarkets. These nurses hold degrees in nursing and invested a lot of time an energy into their education and their work. They say they'll come back when things improve. I would do the same thing. I would happily take a pay cut to get out but I will be applying for a nursing job in another country in the next year or two and want recent experience on my CV. I may get out anyway to protect my nursing license if things don't improve.
Response from Management: Nothing.
But they are talking about compulsory redundancies which will cause them to get grief from unions so they are more than happy to see registered nurses quit. It's more of a "don't let the door hit your arse on the way out mentality" and "thanks for making our job that much easier by leaving voluntarily".
Nice.
Have written to the press, asking them to look into what is going on with the recruitment freeze, the appalling ratios, and the effect this has on nursing care. Have been ignored so far. It is more fun to write pieces that describe nurses as uncaring if she can't feed 20 people at the same time by herself while managing acutely ill patients by herself. Oh yeah give me 2 HCA's so they can each feed ten patients by themselves while answering call bells that are constantly ringing. Problem solved. Not. What we need is cloning technology or a course in how to astroproject.
Any suggestions about how to fight back? Have already been down the NMC and Union route many times.
Edited to Add: Just found this article about some American Nurses who have been fired for whistleblowing about unsafe ratios. They are fighting back and trying to get the message out. Maybe we should go door to door.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-nurses_16met.ART0.North.Edition1.439b37a.html
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