5 West Nursing

Critical care needs to go into critical care. At least where I work. It’s been 2 weeks now that I’ve had to take 3 patients, and it seems like it’s not getting any better. On top of this our managers have the audacity to remind us of avoiding “incremental overtime”. Talk about adding salt to an open wound! “You need to manage your time better” she says. Manage time? How about trying to manage patient load? Better yet, manage staffing and figure out how to retain nurses!

Unfortunately, we are nurses. We bend over and take it up where the sun don’t shine, and the sad part is that there’s nothing we can do about it… no union, no nurses’ advocate, not even an incentive at least for having to take up more patient load. Gosh darn it, the hospital is saving money by cutting us short and in the end, we are responsible for all the stuff we “overlook” because we “need to manage our time better” because we have 3 patients! If this doesn’t make you mad, I don’t know what else will. Then to add icing to the cake you got an electronic medical records system called OPUS which is worth diddly squat! What the heck is this world coming to? Nursing shortage? What nursing shortage? This is why we’re having a nursing shortage… they are killing the nurses! When will nurses band together to stop the bull sh**? That would be the day…

For the meantime, take care of yourself. How? Do the back bends 4 to 5 times a day so you get used to it and grow those back muscles since this is what you’ll be doing most of the time (at least what I do at work). Then do squats at least 3 sets of 12 repetitions 3 – 4 times a day to build those leg muscles so when the day comes that you can finally whip hospital a**, you got those leg muscles to send them to the moon! Just kidding!