Where to start...
No management presence, nurses and medical staff are left alone to make important decisions that should be for management, the administrator,etc
A scary and stupid reluctance to send patients out to hospital. I went to school for 4 years to become a nurse...I have worked hard and put in hundreds of hours of patient care. So, if I am caring for a patient and he or she is obviously ill, lab work is abnormal, something isn't right, etc and there is no doctor present and they need rapid care, I will send them out. We were told not to, to keep the patient as long as possible. Dangerous and unethical! All to meet their patient census and get $$. I will not be responsible for a patients' health decline under my care, treatment should never be delayed. Our small facility can only do so much, and some people are to Too ill and need to go to a hospital where all interventions can be made. Management would actually be annoyed or angry if you sent a patient to the hospital that they deemed unnecessary. One time a patient was very ill and she was sent to the hospital...management kept saying not to send the patient out, do all these other doctors orders first...a waste of valuable time when a person is acutely sick. She did go to the hospital, went to ICU and died that day...still think she doesn't need to go to a hospital ?!?
Absolutely horrific and unfair treatment of employees regarding hours of shifts/on call/etc...Nurse assistants were often begged or pleaded to do double shifts (16 hours!!!) for another day off, etc. these promises were broken all the time. Nurses would work for 13 to 14 hours on a GOOD day to do all paperwork and complete all orders etc. Nurses are put on call for 7 days and are treated as entirely responsible for any "holes" in the schedule. We were always short staffed. If you were on call, your week was going to be horrible and awful and you just knew it...nurses would work a 12 hr shift and then be forced to stay and keep caring for patients because there was no coverage for the next shift. You could be basically trapped there for 16 or 17 hours (16 hrs a day is legally the max an RN can work in NC) all because "you are on call" and no staff was available. Dangerous to patients to have such a tired nurse and unfair, I don't want overtime pay, I want to go home and see my family!
Insane lack of care for staff and their health problems...how ironic in a healthcare facility! Numerous nurses and NA's would request shorter shifts or less time standing/ walking because of health issues...older age and arthritis, knee problems, even heart trouble for example...no help was ever given. Staff would request a change or accommodation and never got it. At one point there were several nurses who were pregnant. Three of them wanted shorter shifts as they got bigger (still working full time, just in 8 or 10 hr shifts instead of 12 +) Management said they would accommodate, and said for months they would "work on it". Never happened. All those nurses had to work 12 hr shifts on their feet the entire day up until their leave. Or else they would lose $ and benefits for dropping hours. One of the pregnant nurses was put on call only two or three weeks before her due date...at the end of your pregnancy you probably shouldn't be working more than 40 hrs a week, or on day and night shifts because there is just no staff.
Always short staffed, as said above...new staff hired were deceived about patient load, on call policy, etc and would quit very shortly after being hired. Super fast turn over.
Never enough medical supplies
Way too heavy of a patient load for NA's and nurses, 20 patients for nurses and 15 for NA's.
Most of my co workers were wonderful and hard working and caring, that was what kept me there...but with no help from management and totally impossible expectations of medical staff was too much. This industry is about patient lives, this is about people, it should never be taken so lightly and without regard to safety.
Promises never kept by management
Staff that were always late, never showed up for their shift or consistently, broke rules over and over were not fired or disciplined. Some staff could just do whatever they wanted and knew it.
Trying to contact your manager or director is impossible. They never return your calls, so if you are at work on a weekend or night time and you need their direction or have an emergency, good luck, because they won't answer you! (8 times out of 10 averaged maybe)
