LAZY NURSES

Ok, we all have lazy moments, or days you just don't want to go above and beyond. Maybe the weather is beautiful and you just wish you were at the beach or maybe you had a bad day at home, kids sick, dog shit on the carpet, whatever. Just not motivated. Of course you do your job and take care of people, just not with the usual spunk.

Could be you are a little burnt out. All we see are sick people. could get depressing. For whatever reason, just not up to snuff.

Then there are the chronically lazy nurses, good nurses mind you, nurses who are better suited to one to one care or ICU. In a very busy er with people waiting hours to get a bed, these nurses drag the entire dept down, the flow becomes non-existant.

Every nurse has a 4 bed assignment, and we have a few that demand extra help (see above post) and others that try to manipulate the system by not letting anyone know if a pt was d/c'd. They close the curtain, leave the chart in the rack, put the flags down. Prior to d/c they go and get people a meal (not that I don't want to feed people), they send the families to the pharmacy to pick up the prescriptions, etc.
All the while you are looking for a bed for a pt that is really sick. You have the triage rn's start care in the waiting room. You have ambulances coming in and are loading people in the hallways.

Keep in mind I want people to be happy with their care, BUT, this is not a day spa, I have 15 people waiting for beds.

Last night, due to sick calls and traing for the new computer system, I had 3 such nurses that were filling in for others. There comes a point where I would rather work short that have people that sink the dept.

All evening long I was calling them on their shit. Every excuse in the book were the answers to my questions. All the way to out and out lies.

Well my answer to these nurses and other nurses out there is FUCK YOU. We have a job to do and are suppose to expedite care.

Some of these nurses work 2-3 jobs and are tired, WTF. For those of you that read about national averages in wages, what is the average for nurses, 50k? well we live in CA, near a big city. I work 40 hours a week, with little OT, and I do work every holiday (hello double time and a half) and I made 160k last year.

These nurses all work for other places too. One such nurse is an instructor 4 days a week, works 4 evenings a week for us and does 2 - 24 hour shifts as critical care transport. Well, I can do that math. He is a great one to one nurse and a nice guy, but he sucks as an assignment nures, and my thought is, does he suck at all of his jobs or just this one. Not fair to us, the pts or probably his other jobs. BTW, he is single, rents a small apt, does pay child support. What does he do with all that money? Is it worth it? Too tired to be an effective member of the team? Should I feel sorry for him. Hell no!

I work hard and almost always bring my A game to work. I have had my moments. But that's what they are, moments.

BRING YOUR A GAME, YOUR TEAMS AND YOUR PTS DESERVE IT.