My employer made us work short staffed on purpose!!

I guess I am bold but I would point that out to them! and they really must be lazy if that is all they do. No wonder that calls go unaswered for a long time ringing if no on emans the phones! or helps to man them!

Good point to bring up here Lakota. I completely forgot to add that in our handbook and what is suppose to happen when we are short staffed is that the head nurse is suppose to stay overtime for the next shift and help us out! The question is do any of the nurses actually do that? NOPE they don't nor do they lift a finger to helps us out either. God forbid if the head nurses had to answer a call light or do any of our duties for once. If it has nothing to do with handing out pills or treatments, they won't do anything otherwise. Thanks for your comment

I just feel like nightshift employees always take the brunt of things around work. There are many times when I use to work evening shifts and come in and see dayshift employees waiting to go home by just sitting around. Now if nightshift is sitting at the end of shift waiting to go home, then it's brought up and on every report it's heard about. So there is a lot of unfairness beside of what I originally wrote in my discussion. Thanks for your comment

I'm not sure how they get by. I know that if there's not the appropriate number of staff then the work has to be shortened and total care is not complete. When I got hired on at this nursing home, the minimum requirements for nightshift was four HCA's and one RN or LPN, so I'm not sure what's happening. Twice this week I had to work short and even a resident was asking me what was going on. I didn't know what to tell her except that if they needed anything, then just pull the call light. Thanks for your comment

I think I was upset because I was not put in the other person's shoes that had to work short before. I just finished a stretch of seven nights and I had to work short twice out of that. I hope that never happens again lol Thanks for your comment

I am thankful that I have a job to go to but I would appreciate it if other shifts would be as appreciated towards us as they are the dayshift employees. On nightshifts we have to do the stocking of breifs, clean wheelchairs, do three wetchecks, answer call bells and usually those call bells range from about 30 to 50 per night because there are many residents that don't sleep at all. Five o'clock we have to start dressing people and that usually goes on until seven. I am one of those who dress extra people and even get them out of bed in the mornings so that I will be appreciated so we are not actually sitting around at night because we have no time to. I don't believe the economy has anything to do with this matter because health care is always going to be a huge need in any community and it's not like we don't have extras that will work because at least four people were willing to work the DON just didn't let them and for other reasons than thinking that we could handle it, I'm sure it's because the dayshift employees are her favorites. The nightshift nurse had a good point. He said that he was going to test the waters at work by telling the DON that he couldn't work nights anymore and he was going to have to switch to days. He mentioned this which makes sense... do you think any of those other shift nurses would actually be happy to take all the nights that he does? NOPE! They wouldn't be able to handle it and I think that goes for the HCA's as well. He said that people should just quit complaining about nightshifts. Thanks for your comment

I feel that I do my best work on nightshift or evening. The only reason I do so many nights is because it fits in my family life with my son's age and being able to be here at home during the day or evening times. I don't see why the budget that everyone is talking about can be a problem because the owner charges the same every month for these rooms and nothing that we are doing is changing. To me health care is never going to have a problem when it comes down to the economy and how crappy it is because it's so much in high demand and there's always going to be sick elders. Thanks for your comment

When it comes to the residents nothing else should matter so my employer says. It's true about them not wanting to pay extra but four is the minimum requirement so it wasn't like they were going out of their budget. Also if you only have half the staff on one side of the building then only half the work technically gets done and then there's more work for the precious dayshift. How can that possibly be proper care for the residents? If my work keeps this up, the residents are going to start complaining and before you know it, we're going to need another extra person on top of the four working because the families are going to complain. We are short again tonight and I knew this from thursday night and I"m sure my supervisor did too. She had the time to get someone in to work tonight but she didn't so this is the second time in one week where it's been short on nights. Thanks for your comment

Thanks sissygrl, that makes me feel a heck of a lot better that I still have hope with this nonsense at work and that I"m not the only one feeling badly about it. Honestly it seems like there's going to be a war breaking out at my work and that the shifts are all against each other. I don't want to feel like I"m on a battlefield, I just want to go to work and work lol. You're right about one thing though, as long as one person is happy then someone else will be unhappy. Thanks for your comment