It’s a numbers game
To cope with the Omicron Wave, the hospital went into Red Alert. The nurse to patient ratio stayed at 1:5, The in charge/ Team Leader had to take a pt load, there was nobody to float. We had over 20 covid positive patients in an Aged Care ward, approx 10 patients were either De Isolated from COVID or they did not have COVID. Tha majority of COVID patients were bedbound/full care. The doors were shut, we were only allowed to be gowned up when going into the rooms. We had at least 2 patients who were wanderers and kept coming out of the rooms. We were told that as it was a Cohourt ward we were not at risk of getting COVID, because we were not a COVID ward!!! Our Senior RN nurse’s were deployed to COVID wards, they were replaced with AINs. Nearly every shift the RNs had 10 pts working with an AIN in COVID rooms. It’s all about the numbers, if we had become a COVID ward we would have had COVID Marshall’s, full staffing and we would have been supported.