My Story: Renee Ebel, RN (Page 121)

I live and work in northern Minnesota, Duluth to be specific.   I can appreciate the occasional grand snow storm, one in which limited nurses and other staff is able to get to the hospital to work.  We call those days “snow days” and only the basics are truly expected to be done with the limited staff available.  The patients seem to recognize the hardship and in part take in the experience with understanding.

However… when the majority of shifts we work feels like a “snow day” and it has become more of the norm to run like crazy all shift and consistently not have enough staff to care for the patients, we are teetering on a disaster waiting to happen.   I used to get a bit irritated when I would hear patients say they “waited for 45 minutes to get pain medication or that they had had their call light on for an hour”.   I knew in my heart it wasn’t that long, but now days…. it most likely is absolutely true!  They are waiting longer and longer to have their needs met.  There just are not enough nurses to get all that is expected of us completed.  And at the end of the line is the patient who is getting the short end of the deal.

It is literally one of the most saddening feelings for me when a patient says “you guys must be short staffed tonight, I’ve hardly seen you at all”…. Ahhhhhhhh… head down, sheepish look, and we have been conditioned to cover up for our facility by muttering some meaningless statement… “Oh, not too bad tonight”.  The staffing shortage is causing the nurses to blatantly mislead patients.  I can’t tell you how many times in a shift I reassure a patients by saying:  “I’ll be right back” or “I’ll bring that into you shortly”  and as soon as I leave the room, I’m hit with another request  or question and all bets are off when I will get back to see that patient again.  It’s disheartened to feel like I am just in a constant state of empty promises because I plainly cannot meet all needs of my patients during my shift.

I know we use the word “busy” a lot to describe how our shift went.  We should be “busy” each shift.  Nursing is a “busy” profession.  However, “busy” and “BUSY” are two different animals.  When we, as nurses,  discuss our jobs and say things like, “ I started with 10 patients, we were short 1 nurse and 1 nursing assistant,  3 discharges, 2 surgicals, hanging blood, one patient fall, 1 admit, 1 transfer, a family crisis and no time for lunch” … we totally understand the grandness of the events.  However, getting management to understand how all of those issues are actually attached to a human being is almost impossible.   They, the hospital management, are following the beat of a different drummer in my eyes.

Let’s look at the facts:  I am responsible for a total of 14 patients.  14 different actual human beings!  All with a different name, family members, medical history, diagnosis and treatment plans, each with their own set of orders to be followed by several different doctors, all with dissimilar personalities that need to be addressed just a bit different with each room we enter, some that can move easily (love that) and many that need quite a bit of assistance of several staff members.  They are not just bed numbers with a diagnosis.

Nursing is at a breaking point.  I’m at a breaking point.  It’s my licensed responsibility to be an advocate for the patients I care for.  It’s time for me to stand up and fight for their safety.

Let’s be honest. It’s a beautiful sunny summer day in Duluth Minnesota, but I know, within the walls of the hospital, another “snow day” is occurring.  The weather pattern for nursing has got to change!

Renee Ebel RN