Imploding

Yesterday I watched

a nurse sit

in the dark main central desk

where there has been on unit clerk for two days

and call in a moral distress, burnout work safe claim.

That day I did my own share

of unit clerking

faxed off my own orders

called my own medivan

to transport a patient I planned to discharge the next day…

complicated and tenuous at best.

Then the next watch a nurse go home after seriously burning her hand

lover spilt coffee

exhausted, stressed and distracted as the floor worked short again…

Then in half an hour

over multiple phone calls

watched the discharge

I spent all day the day before setting up

so carefully as the pieces all had to line up

just so…

after the bedside nurse

told the confused patient

she was going home

then called the violent aggressive son

because the patient gave that nurse permission to do so

The son then verbally aggressively chewed out the nurse over the phone

then called the community

and did the same to them

then I got a call from the community home support nurse

then her manager

then my team lead

shut the whole thing down right quick

needing no convincing the CHWs needed protecting first and foremost.

Later

After a chat with the enhanced discharge team CNL

wondering who told the son

to find out that

though we had tried to fly under the radar

the bedside nurse had done what she thought was right

in telling the patient

confused at best….

bedside nursing being a respiratory nurse, no geriatric seasoned nurse…

that she was going home with 3x8hr caregivers….

land it all came crashing down

like a house of cards.

Then later that day

probably feeling like she had done wrong

perhaps feeling guilty

and needing to blame someone…

striking out

demanding I tell the patient

who sure as heck wouldn’t remember later anyhoo

why she wasn’t going home…

while time was fading out

and I was in the way to see my MAID assessment patient

minutes ago up from emerg

finalizing

all the pieces to

carry him through at home

over the next 10days between

the doc hot on my heels to assess him for MAID

and his ride out…

telling the nurse in th hall demanding I take time

to explain to the confused patient now clearly a long slow haul

out to LTC she was going nowhere…

Have a open, honest, easy, refreshing conversation

with the MAID patient

stop on my way to

casually chat with the confused patient

briefly explaining she would be staying with us for a bit

chatting a bit more about LTC

return to write up and fax off

the MAID patients community collateral

then chart the brief LTC patient conversation …to come in

next morning to an email

from my colleague that

the CNL and that bedside nurse

who crashed my discharge had requested

my colleague take over the file on the

crashed discharge

replying

easy

Courteously

handed over the file

DBA done the day before

in the hour after it all fell apart

thinking only

grateful

the aggressive son

had been a threat over the phone

and not in person to some poor tiny lone

care aide in the community

land leave it at that.

Noting that when shit hits the fan

i revert to

charting furiously

multiple notes

date and time stamped

headed

knowing only that in court

if it blows up

i wont recall much

and those date and time stamped notes

will be my only shelter

my only protection

and how yet again

and am criticized

for writing

too much….

fuck em

and I think

of this stressful job

how I have risen

to learn a new specialty

in short months

how burnout haunts me still

how the anger flares

and the brittle

fragile tears too

and how

it wont be long

before I walk away

from this profession for good

like so many

as the system

crumbles around us

every minute of every day

and the stress causes us

to turn on one another