Rural facilities are not coping
In a small rural facility with a 20 bed aged care attached to a 6 bed acute ward and an Emergency department there is 2 x RNs one EEN, one AIN and a HSA on morning and evening shifts and on nights 2 x RNs and a HSA. One RN up in Acute/ED and the others in the aged care facility. The ward can get full with 6 acute patients leaving the one RN who is in charge of the whole hospital to care for 6 at times high care heavy patients. Then into ED comes, suture removals, lacerations, abdominal pain, shingles, vaccination reactions, chest pains, or traumas ect. All presentations ranging from Cat 1-5. We can call our NUM in from home if after hours and get the RN from the aged care up to help in full PPE (leaving the residents in the aged care with no RN) But you only do that for Cat 1 or 2. Even if you only have Cat 3-5 in ED you can be stuck in there for hours, leaving your acute patients with no nurse. No showers happen, no Obs, running back and forth from ED answering buzzers in acute for assisting to toilet, providing analgesia, IV antibiotics, wound care, plus when intragam infusions come in or blood transfusions, these are also the responsibility of the same multitasking RN. This is extremely unsafe and unfair to the patients and the nurse. This needs to be changed. There needs to be an RN who is solely responsible for Emergency and when no-one is in ED they could help with the ward.