Published by Sean on 19 Apr 2007
Charlie’s Leg and a Nursing Rant
I am tired tonight. I’m switching from days to nights by staying up all night, and my body is NOT happy about it. Normally it’s not a big deal, but three days ago I was asking my body to switch from nights to days. Seriously, how cruel is it to give me a schedule that involves working night shifts for two weeks, then two day shifts, and then back to nights for two weeks. Yes, I shall be dead before I’m forty!
Charlie had his splint off today. I dropped him off at the vet early in the morning and took off to run errands while the vet took an x-ray and examined his leg. When I picked Charlie up, he had a cone on his head and he looked miserable! The leg is just fine; however, he would not stop licking his foot/leg. So, until he stops, he will have to wear the cone (all that licking could cause an infection). He spent the afternoon under the coffee table looking completely unimpressed with the entire day.
The poor guy is having trouble walking. You can tell by looking at the leg that it is much weaker than his healthy leg. Weeks of not using the muscles of caused them to become imperfect. On top of that, he seems confused by the lack of splint–he had become so used to it! Four weeks is a lot of time in the life of a fifteen-week-old puppy. So, he needs to strengthen his leg and learn to use it again. I wonder if there’s a doggy physiotherapist around here.
I enjoyed the day off with a vehicle (Richard got a ride to work so I could use the van to take Charlie to the vet). I bought a couple books at Chapters, sipped tea at Starbucks, bought Richard some pants, and wondered around the mall. I forgot how much better it is to have a vehicle of my own. I was reminded of the freedom a vehicle allowed, and it pleasantly intoxicated me! I may just decided to buy that new Honda Civic after all.
Patience! That’s what I need! I need to pay off a couple debts, then try to get approved for a mortgage…and when that fails, I can get my fancy new Honda Civic.
Work is driving me to the point of insanity. There are just too many patients and too little time. I am so disheartened by all the “solutions” that are being introduced in order to help speed up admissions to the hospital, and thereby reduce ER wait times.
For the record, I am absolutely tired of the news reporting that the long waits are due to a massive bed shortage. To whomever is listening THE REPORTS OF THERE BEING A BED SHORTAGE ARE FOR THE MOST PART A MYTH!!!!! That felt good…
The news keeps stating over and over again that there is a critical bed shortage and that we need to hurry up and build new hospitals, and add on to current ones in order to ease the crunch. The news reports that because of this shortage of beds, patients in the ER have to wait thirteen hours or so to be admitted.
The problem with that is that there are dozens of beds in my hospital that lay empty at every moment of the day. On my unit there are usually four and sometimes eight beds that lay empty all the time. So, why aren’t patients being admitted to these empty beds? BECAUSE THERE ARE NO NURSES TO TAKE CARE OF THEM.
Sorry for the capitals, but seriously, why does this fact seem to escape the media, the health region, and the Government? Why do all of these institutions insist that building more beds will solve the problem? They are building a big hospital down south, but if there’s not enough nurses to run the hospitals we have, then who will run the new hospital?
So, the “solutions” to the ER wait times? They have implemented what they call “Triggers.” For example, if someone has been in the ER for four hours (the four hour limit being the trigger), they will be sent to a unit whether there’s a bed available or not. If someone has been in the post anesthetic recovery room for a certain amount of time, they will be sent to a unit whether there’s room or not.
They expect us to admit these patients post-op and from the ER and care for them in the hallways. This is about as unsafe as it gets! Not only does it overwhelm the nursing staff (I didn’t think we could be more overwhelmed…I guess this will prove me wrong), but putting patients in hallways means that we don’t have emergency equipment available at the bedside.
What we need is MORE NURSES. We need to find innovative ways to attract AND KEEP nurses to the city. This could include great signing bonuses, competitive wages (not to nurses in other provinces, but to other, similarly educated people in this city), excellent benefits (seriously, shouldn’t nurses have good health benefits?), and more than anything…a positive work environment.
What we don’t need (which we are experiencing) is difficulty getting a pay increase that even comes close to matching cost of living increase. The government wants to give us a couple percent raise over the next few years. They are also attempting to roll back many of our benefits. Is this really a time to take a step backward?!?!?!?!
This in a city, where on a full time nursing wage, you can’t even get approved for a mortgage for a 500 square condo. If you doubled a nurse’s wage, he/she would be able to just barely get approved for that bachelor suite (assuming they don’t own a car or have an ounce of debt). On a nurse’s wage, even renting a one bedroom apartment can potentially take up half of your paycheck.
Ok, I’m going to stop there. Rant over. I could type for hours about this issue, but I need to stop somewhere.
