Labor and Delivery/Postpartum
Comment 1
I work on a Labor and Delivery/Postpartum unit. I work the night shift for the past 19 years and I have seen the high rate of nurse turnover and struggle with nurse retention. Of the varied reasons for discord is the perception and role that the new nurses are expected to jump into after a harried orientation. I also see the inability to conform or endure the role of a night nurse on a very busy unit.
Expectations seem to be unrealistic and not well defined when progressing through the orientation process that begins on the “day” shift when a orientee is hired for a night shift position. According to Mazhindu, D. M., Griffiths, L., Pook, C., Erskine, A., Ellis, R., & Smith, F. (2016), the resilience and devotion to performing the job hired for is not clear or misinterpreted. Also the financial aspect of training or orienting nurses is always increasing. According to Colosi (2018), the 2018 National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report shows that the average cost of RN turnover ranges from $38,000 to $61,000 which translates into the hospital cost for turnover ranging from $4.4M – $7.0M.
Comment 2
I currently work in a sub-acute unit of a long term care center. The center has two units, the senior nursing facility (SNF) and sub-acute unit. My unit is very different from the SNF side because they all have tracheotomies, require total care, most of them have PEG tubes, and their acuity is higher. It is a 27-bed unit and each nurse is usually responsible for 6-8 patients over an 8 hour shift. The unit is divided into four different carts and some carts are more difficult than others. We are not only responsible for medication pass, but we also need to assist our CNAs with ADLs. A major problem the organization is facing is the high turn-over rate. I have only worked at the facility for a year and it took me about 4 months to finally get used to the unit. It is a very difficult unit to work on and many nurses have quit because they are not adequately trained. The length of training is only 1-2 weeks and at most 8 shifts total. Most of the time it is usually less until the nurse is put on the floor by themselves. Luckily, most of the nurses are very nice and helpful, but everyone is busy so it can be hard to stop what you’re doing to help the new nurse. The major problem is the inadequate training that new nurses receive.
