It's been a very smooth night at work, and I just had an enormous fill of admissions. Also, I started a TPN at the third floor via a CADD Pump, and it was exciting, I guess. Who had ever imagined that a TPN is being ran by a CADD Pump, in that the person can be visually ambulatory, independently carrying the portable machine as well as the milky liquid nutrition. It does promotes great autonomy I think. Great thanks to technology!
Despite the flaccid and tachy hustle and bustle of the diversified amount of patients coming in and out of this four storey stuccoed building the nurses were just so immune to the hapless situation and had never paid great attention to it. For them, as long as the building is well staff and there were ample amount of patients to generate a revenue, they were okay with it. Having a stable job is very important nowadays.
Gone is the type of nursing that had really focused on the importance of the meaningful theory of "compassionate nursing care" at the bedside. Today nurses were being taught and forcefully dictated as I may say, to protect the company from expensive and unending lawsuits. That's why the bulk of work for the nurse's just keeps piling up to the brim and the endless documentation audits were surmountingly inproportionate for their time and shifts, as well as the underserve care for the residents was greatly affected thus accruing myriad uncorrectable errors and creating tensions among the nurses and the administration.
Beating uncharted deadlines is no joke. The bulk and amount of work will just pile up thus creating more issues for them. Taking their time to empathize and advocate for their respective patients is not either achievable and accessible because they have to finish passing meds right away due to the fact that they have to alot almost half of their time in documenting what they did during their routinary shift.
What's wrong with the so called "Old School Nursing At The Bedside"? Nurses should interact more with their helpless patients at the bedside talking to them of their concerns and making plans on how to avoid such problems to surface again. Making care plans is not a joke. Nurses must rationalize effectively to achieve the goals they had planned keenly for their patients. They need to be more advocating for their welfare and improvement healthwise.
That's why my friend Cathy was really pissed off and super overwhelmed because most of the bulk of her work were spent on documentations and follow ups of orders and critical labs which was just irrevocably passed on to her by the clever and cunning nurses of the previous shifts and for her to tackle all those undone issues and work was really so overwhelming and biased. I can imagine and relate fully, how stressed out she was and had almost pulled out her hair due to the fact that it was so frighteningly scary. Poor Ma Cherie!
Well, as a kind and sympathetic friend, I just have to fit on her shoes and give her a very focused ear to listen. As long as she obstinately vented out all those pent up emotions, I am happy with it. I really felt as a willing buffer for all of her hapless frustrations and uninvited worries. I really felt her helpless emotions and seeping pains of being overwhelmed and feeling of being a "dumpster" of the previous shift's undone tasks.
By staying at her side, I had showed my ample support for her and hopefully she would feel better after venting it all out. Anyway, the shift was finished unimaginatively, and I guess she had successfully survived the most challenging night of her life, I guess. She no longer felt that she has to carry the whole world on her shoulder (like the myth Atlas). What will happen the following day will be another story of our lives and I am just glad that we had all survived the shift despite of the many challenges and issues that had arise. Cest la vie Ma Cherie!
