The Job

Oh, yeah . . . The Job. The reason we're here. Like I said before, it's a very small hospital. CA has very strict laws about how many patients a nurse can have. For step-down units, nurses are only allowed to have 4 patients. The first week that we were here, we had only 3 patients each. They have to staff it that way in case they get a lot of patients coming into the ER. A lot of hospitals that we work for will send people home the instant that a unit's census drops. If they get a lot of admissions, the nurses on duty just have to take more patients until the next shift. Last fall, to cut costs, this floor got rid of all of its techs/nursing assistants. Most of the nurses on the unit either left, went to other floors, or went into the float pool (float between the units of the hospital). That means that most nights that we work, it's all travelers or float staff. I like working with no techs. Some places that we work the techs are great and really help out. A lot of times, though, it's hard to get them to do things so we end up doing our job and theirs, too, rather than argue. They had two charge nurses that were staff. One of them just lost her dad to a heart attack. Her family is wealthy and owns a ranch which she needs to help run. That means that she's off indefinitely. We work with a traveler whose husband is also a nurse and works in the ICU. They usually live in a RV but decided to take an apartment this time. They didn't want to drive the RV all the way from Florida. Another traveler's husband is an LPN that works in a local nursing home while they're here. They also live in an RV. Two female travelers travel together and two male travelers also travel together. The guys make sure that everyone knows immediately that they are just friends. Their contract is almost over and they're heading for Orlando. It's a fun group and they want to do some things together if we all have off at the same time. The job seems to be going fairly well. We'll probably ask to stay until Dec. 2nd. We've got a lot of things to see!!