ED is drowning
I’m an ED CNE & due to the extreme & constant pressure on our ED, I take a patient load daily to try & help & it still feels like something bad is going to go down. Our NUM has tried multiple times to get support for extra staff & we are just told no. We have more isolation beds open to cope with covid & upper management refuse to allow an extra nurse each shift in order to look after these beds that are always open. We continue to work on low nursing numbers with more & more beds open & are just expected to keep flexing well beyond safe ratios. The increased toll of being in & out of “covid rooms” also makes the flow so disrupted & takes up more nursing time. On night shift it can be 1:8 in ED with multiple of those being isolation rooms. It’s not safe. We are drowning.
We are nowhere near to coping, we are exhausted, the ED nursing staff are so flat, there is no joy in coming to work any more. If I didn’t have nurses guilt I would’ve left already. We tried to organise a strike, the union couldn’t come into the hospital to talk to us & it was sooo busy noone could leave to sign up. Many fear the repercussions of striking.
I don’t even fathom the thought of trying to get cne work done. I don’t know how to keep supporting the staff when NSW health doesn’t even care about our professional safety