[Shelly Levitt]

LTC can have rather harsh working conditions. Having to admin. up to 60 pts. medications in addition to doing tx, admin. G-T fdgs, hang IV's, admit and d/c pts, answer phones, chart, call MD's and supervise CNA's leaves LTC nurses with no spare time. Often having to take dangerous short cuts and overlook what we know is substandard care. I found LTC nurses to have all the accountability and no authority.

[tmoorelpn]

That's exactly right! The problem that I ran into the most was having to do with staffing issues. I complained over and over again that the staffing issues were affecting resident care. I was told that all I had to do was call and request more help....PLEASE! I would call and I was always told that there was nowhere to get help from, so what is there for a nurse to do? I spent more than my fair share of nights working as a CNA and as a nurse. I would pass a couple of pills, get a couple people up or put a couple people down in bed. There were more nights than I'd like to count where we had 4 CNAs for 180 residents and 4 nurses for 180 people. Now how is that safe? What if there were a fire, there wouldn't be enough people to evacuate the residents. But the administation believes that we have enough staff to cover the building because everyone was up in the morning, everyone was fed and all the pills had been given with very little skin breakdown on any of the units. So they are getting a huge break on payroll but at the staff's expense because we're having to the do the work of two to three staff members. Then when staff gets hurt while working they are punished by being stuck in the shredding room shredding paper for 8 hours a day until they are able to return to full duty, then they have to spend two days in transfer re-training watching a TV screen all day. Many of the injuries are repetitive injuries like tendonitis, carpal tunnel, back strain/spasms, etc.
I will never work in LTC ever again. The hospital is less demanding! I have nursing classmates who went from LTC to the hospital setting and said they don't work nearly as hard and they aren't nearly as stressed out.

[Shelly Levitt]

I am happy to hear that you found a safer place to practice nursing. Nurses should never clock in an accept an assignment if the staffing ratio is unsafe least they put their nursing license in jeopardy. Rather get fired from a job than loose my license. I have no idea where this industry is headed.

[cougarnurse]

I know this is an old thread, but had to answer. Yes, there is a nursing shortage, but I believe part of the problem is that many nurses consider LTC as 'beneath' them, or only for LPN's. True, things depend on management also....been there, seen that. I have been at the same facility for over 7 years, and know others who work in hospitals, and there have been complaints from the hospital nurses, too.

You mention what would happen if there was a fire?? We have 120 residents at our facility, and had an electrical fire. There were 2 nurses leaving from
3-11, and 8 aides......4 from 3-11 who were not using the transportation van, and 4 from 11-7. The place was evacuated safely and everyone knew their job. Yes, a few residents did die later on, but they were doing poor before hand.