JetJaguar124

I work in a mental hospital, as well, as a psychiatric care tech (fancy word for nurses assistant). I love the work and my coworkers, but we have continuous issues with staffing. Is this common?

For example, I worked a weekend a little while ago where we had 3 nurses for 26 patients and two assistants with two 1:1 patients. We got a sitter for one patient, but me and the other tech had to switch off doing the 1:1 and managing the 15 minute checks. This meant that basically all I could do during the shift was the 15 minute check when I wasn't doing the 1:1; this meant other responsibilities didn't get done like drawing labs and doing EKGs, and if a nurse did ask for my help with something while I was doing checks it meant that I'd be taken away from the checks and thus the frequency with which I'd be able to check in on patients would be reduced.

Management oftentimes fails to staff appropriately and won't let nurses take shifts if need exists elsewhere (for example, if a nurse on my floor calls off and gets a replacement, management will block the replacement from working the shift if another floor is down a nurse). We don't use on call nurses. We had a couple falls, a nurse got punched, etc... And it all seemed very chaotic. I understand keeping staffing costs in-line, but I feel like we are regularly low staffed enough to impact quality of patient care.

This is an extreme example but staffing is a regular concern. I'd say we are regularly in need most every time I'm there. Is this a problem throughout the industry or is our management just bad?

I work for a huge hospital system and sometimes I feel the types of people who are promoted to manager positions are not those who should be there i.e. individuals who care more about being in a position of power than providing for our patients.

Managers where I work 'check on' how busy we are by randomly stopping by to see what's happening for 20 minutes. When charge nurses and other staff complain about staff were told either to work harder or brushed off. It's an insane way to run a system. Trust your nursing staffs judgment.