Chaos

It was generally believed that things would get better in the new hospital once we went through our adjustment period. Instead, it has gotten worse and is in complete chaos. The doctors are operating again and filling us up with patients and we can't handle it.

The design of the new hospital looks nice. Almost every room is private and big, but the only way to give such space to patients is to make the nurses walk across what feels like miles of corridors. That means when a patient needs a nurse, it can take some time for the nurse to get there.

The design is also inefficient when it comes to access to medical supplies. Our supplies are nowhere near the rooms. Every time a patient wants a cup or a towel, we have to take off in our running shoes to retrieve them. The more time we spend walking the corridors, the more time that patients wait to have their calls answered.

The patients are so upset that one night in my unit alone, two different patients called 911. Neither of the patients were confused. They were just scared for their lives. The next day, the hospital administrators were notified of this by the 911 people. No one likes having a Sunday morning at home disturbed by a call from government officials about the patients in their new hospital calling 911.

For the last three days, I was the evening charge nurse over this mess. I'm known for my calm demeanor at work, but yesterday I lost it. My unit has three nursing stations and everyone was upset when they couldn't find me right away. I spent my evening speed walking between the three stations trying to put out fires, but when fires are shooting up in three different locations at the same time, it is too much. I was overwhelmed about not being able to be three places at once and angry that people expected it.

When the house supervisor complained about how my coworkers at the other stations were having a hard time finding me, I went on the offensive. I normally keep my mouth shut and just smile, but this time I turned into an angry lawyer delivering a fiery closing argument about the crazy design of the building. The supervisor backed off and gave me some much needed space.

The charge nurses from the other shifts share my feelings. One has already quit her position. We do have a solution to our problem, move back to the old hospital. It was designed by the founder of our HMO. He knew something about efficiency and what works for the nurses.

We know that is not an option, so our plan B is to divide up the nursing stations into different units. They would be be separately staffed with its own charge nurse. Station 4 would be orthopedics. Station 5 would be general surgery. Station 6, we would abandon because it is nothing but a waste of space. The charge nurses are all in agreement.

That is basically what we did in the old hospital. Combining the two units and having just one charge nurse to run back and forth between the stations is a big mistake. We can fix at least that problem. I'm going to talk to the manager about this change. In the meantime, I hope that someone else will be charge for a while. I've had it.