Original Article can be found here with comments
http://www.wfsb.com/story/23364976/vanderbilt-medical-center-to-have-nurses-cleaning-up
You can follow the live feed of discussions from #NursesCleaningToilets here,
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NursesCleaningToilets&src=hash
@VUMCHealth here:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%40VUMChealth&src=typd
Nurses are too afraid to speak up in their organizations and be vocal, KevinMd.com, ALENE NITZKY, RN, PHD:"The administration there came up with the brilliant idea of cutting back on housekeeping staff and making nurses do some of the cleaning, though it’s not specified how much. Nurses would be expected to take out the trash and linens, and mop up spot cleans on the floors, among other things.
They mentioned Florence Nightingale. But good ol’ Flo didn’t work these days when nurses do much more than light lamps, give baths and put warm compresses on people. She wasn’t responsible for titrating IV medications, giving chemotherapy, or bringing someone back from cardiac arrest. And she didn’t have to document everything she did in an EHR either.
The response of the administrators to backlash from the nurses was to tell them not to vent about it to the patients, to go to the administrators and vent. That heavy-handed approach always backfires. People are already talking about it in online nursing forums and other social media. No one trusts the higher-ups, few people want to risk their job by speaking up. The truth comes out in other ways, and makes its way to the mass media.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/09/nurses-afraid-speak-organizations-vocal.html
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Nurses As Housekeepers at Vanderbilt Medical Center: An Untold Story Behind the Story, by Rosemary Gibson, Senior Advisor, The Hastings Center and Author, Battle Over Health Care: What Obama’s Reform Means for America’s Future
Hospital budget cuts became viscerally visible earlier this month when Vanderbilt Medical Center announced that nurses must now perform housekeeping duties — cleaning patients’ rooms and bathrooms.
In case you missed the video of the internal announcement secretly recorded by a nurse that aired on Nashville’s WSMV television station, here it is.
Tell Vanderbilt Medical Center: Nurses are NOT Janitors! ThePetitionSite.com:"Vanderbilt Medical Center has come up with an absurd way to deal with budget cuts - by having nurses clean patients' room in addition to their already busy work load. In addition to their regular care duties, nurses will now be responsible for stripping bed linens, removing the trash, and mopping the floor after seeing patients.
Forcing this new duty on nurses will harm morale, which can lead to decresed patient satisfaction. In addition, this new task may be exposing patients to potential harm. Bed linens and trash cans typically contain bodily fluids. Forcing nurses to clean these areas could lead to cross contamination, a potential hazard to patients.
Nurses are not janitors. Tell Vanderbilt Medical Center to stop treating nurses like janitors."
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/506/669/666/tell-vanderbilt-medical-center-nurses-are-not-janitors/
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Vanderbilt Medical Center to have #nurses cleaning up, Reported by Kimberly Curth, @VUMChealth @WFSBnews #nurseup #Nashville #Tennessee #RN #LPN (Do read the comments at the bottom please):"The Channel 4 I-Team has learned some Vanderbilt nurses will now be in charge of cleaning patients' rooms, even bathrooms. Sanitized environments in hospitals are critical to a patient's health, but the new cost cutting measure has at least one nurse concerned. "Cleaning the room after the case, including pulling your trash and mopping the floor, are all infection-prevention strategies. And it's all nursing, and it's all surgical tech. You may not believe that, but even Florence Nightingale knew that was true," said a hospital administrator to staff in a video obtained by the Channel 4 I-Team. The new cleaning changes were also detailed in an email sent to staff of the Vanderbilt Medical Center East team, which - according to a hospital employee - works in surgery areas and patient rooms."
http://www.wfsb.com/story/23364976/vanderbilt-medical-center-to-have-nurses-cleaning-up
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What Do Nurses Do in Between Patients? At This Hospital, They’re Cleaning Toilets, Care2.com:"Unsurprisingly, doing janitorial work doesn’t appear to be one of the ways of boosting nursing morale, especially when the nursing staff is allowed no input or feedback on the proposal. In fact, the nursing staff was ordered not to speak in public at all about the new workload. “Nurses were told to ‘refrain from speaking negatively about this in an open forum where our customer can hear. If you need to vent come see me,’” reports Eyewitness News TV 3. The new duties aren’t just a concern to nurses because of the time involved, but the potential increase for harming patients as well. The trash or linens can often contain waste with bodily fluid on it or other contamination, which could cause serious health issues if patients are subject to them. The idea has many nurses rightfully worried about potential cross-contamination, a hazard the hospital administration appears to dismiss."
http://www.care2.com/causes/what-do-nurses-do-in-between-patients-at-this-hospital-theyre-cleaning-toilets.html |
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It is
unacceptable that you would cut budget and make the nurses act as
custodians. How much of a paycut did the administrative section take?
None? How much of a profit do you make? I genuinely can’t believe that a
Hospital somehow can’t afford a custodial staff. It makes me suspect of
your entire operation. I wouldn’t bring my loved ones to a hospital
like this even in an emergency.
