NursingLink

Here we go again. Cannot get this thing to work. I get "type a reply to submt" I have the story copied and pasted and it just will not take it.

Good Grief!  I'm so taxed after thinking about the other two people and the baby and the Hospice nurse!  I just don't know what to say anymore.  Is the world going to hell?  Alright, well, you know what I mean.

Yes!  I didn't want to offend anyone but yeah.  Where do these people come from?  How can this counsellor or who ever he was falsify the documentation?  He had to have known that he would get caught.  Now he'll have to live with this for the rest of his life.  And every day many of us walk out the door feeling like we always have to be right there 100% on everyday, or we might get sued.  Then these idiots go on with this blatant disregard for human life.  3 DEATHS?!   Why?

I just do not understand how it can go on for so long,

If anyone who has ever worked in psych is totally surprised by this I can't understand why.  I know that this was a very upscale private hospital but it happens all the time in other hospitals.  I don't necessarily mean the deaths but techs who falsify records, who don't do the checks they are required to, who are often too busy with the multiple other tasks assigned to them.  I know I'm repeating myself but let's look at staffing patterns here.

Even in California where there are mandated nurse patient ratios, behavioral health still has the highest ratios of any specialty.  And when you consider that in CA psych techs are considered licensed personnel that can mean one nurse and one tech for 12 patients.  Who is going to have that kind of caseload and still be able to keep up with q15 minute checks.

In most ICUs the ration is 1:1 or at most 1:2 and their patients aren't trying to kill themselves.  Anyone who has worked a CD unit with detoxing patients knows they can go from bad to worse in a second.  What about the psychotic patients who attack another patient without warning?  Can we monitor them when we have 11 other patients who need attention?

Thanks all for your great feedback on this topic

leah: you would think so wouldn't you

I know there are times when I have so many patients that need my attention and they don't get it.  I just pray when I go from room to room that they are ok. I feel like I bust butt all the time and still feel and know I should do more. I go home defeated almost all the time. I have never understood those nurse or staff that sit around the whole shift doing nothing, how do they live with themselves. My job I just quit was LTC , I had the medicare unit and one other unit, so 50 residents for myself and two CNAs. There is one other LPN and her two CNAs in the house that has 55 residents. Things can go bad fast and there isn't anyone to help. She can't leave her residents to help me, but being an RN I have to be able to leave mine to help her. We can have nocs that are horrible and our residents lives are at risk. We are the ones that are going to pay, not the administration that puts us in these positions.  They tie are hands behind are back and tell us to do are work, and they want more than what we can offer.

I begged for help in one psych hospital where I worked. I never got it. Then, I asked for a transfer which I never got. I at last quit. Hated to quit. I had been there for 5 years. But, I was putting my license out there. After I left, help was hired. A lot of help.

Squirmals,

I have been in the same position more than once.  I ALWAYS wonder why I'm still there documenting an hour after others have left.  Once in psych we had a pt. admitted early in the shift, I repeatedly asked the counsellors (like CNA's in this place) to go through her belongings and give her her things.  At eleven, she still couldn't have her slippers yet.  Finally, when I found the counsellors playing chess (with each other mind you not a pt.)   I took the bag and dropped it on the chess board, this was like 10:45pm.  The next day I was told that there had been a complaint and a threat to quit if I remained the charge nurse. 

Squirmals, you have B****  I wish I could have thought of breaking up my name tag like that!  You know if the counsellors were playing chess with a patient, I probably wold have done it myself.  Smoke 1 person at a time on your BREAK!!!  Ther would be less of this sort of thing happening if just that one thing was changed.  No need to falsify if your actually doing your job.  But I guess that's the whole point.  I'd never ask anyone to do anything I wouldn't do myself.  That counts for lights, changing incontinence, and doing checks!

As a young mental tech I remembered one of the best supervisor I ever had a Rn telling me to treat ever complaint by the patient with seriousness even if they were being somatic.

This has helped me even in skilled nursing as I have never ran into a lawsuit in over a decade as a nurse.

Being attentive to every patient will prevent a patient dying on the nurse......there will in event of death be some documentation or communication which can identify some course of action.

Many times your effort will be questioned you will be criticized for being too attentive but you will not have to stand before a judge to give account of ones action.