Accountability

Among the words that determine a professional is the word ¨accountability¨.  This means dont blame others, blame yourself, determine the problem, find the solution.
That means that you cant blame the hospital for not training you, you cant blame them for any interference with your duty, which is to provide nursing care without excuses.  You are licensed to protect the public, not just in Texas, but anywhere you nurse.

You are not allowed to fail, to scream or cry in desperation, the health of the nation is the burden you chose to carry.  You did not agree to carry half or one quarter, but all of it.

Years back our hospital decided to bring in renal transplants, they bought themselves a doctor, hired the experienced nursing supervisor, and then went crazy with the inservices.  I suspected the doctor was an idiot from the get go, he could not articulate to the class that spouse-to-spouse transplants were not ideal because sex caused the presence of antibodies.  He couldnt do do it because the class had to many female nurses!  He was morally incapable of providing the science needed for the successful start of the program.

But it was worse, the first patient went to surgery and he could not find the renal artery.  This was telecommunicated immediately to all nurses in the hospital.  He was an incompetent doctor and surgeon, yet here he was in the city of El Paso, impersonating a doctor.

That was the end of the program!  Renal transplants would have to wait and what the hell, we still had dialysis and a dose of epopoetin was about a thousand dollars.  It wasnt like we were not making money.  Finally we bought ourselves another renal surgeon, but this time, no training, no specially trained nurses and an ICU that only staffed one-to-one, on the open hearts.  

A new renal transplant is labor intensive, just keeping track of the urine output is a task that requires a lot of attention.  Why?  Because before the patient leaves the OR, a max dose of diuretics is administered to prime the new kidney, so the fluid administration is tricky, and sutures can and do fail, the urine will leak through the suture line, this is a critical patient.

You will not get relief from Nursing MGMT, they get bonuses for keeping staff low, You wont get relief from Medicare .... they have no clue.  If there is no relief  you leave, you dont play chicken with a persons life.

When Aids caught us, the nurses refused to take care of the patient, the nursing assistants refused to go into the room.  The trays were put into the anti room and left there.  It took time to get the nursing staff to commit.  Time magazine was partially to blame for this.  The were to moral to use the word semen in their publication, so they said body fluids.  It was this false reliance on external publications that fed the news and the nursing population's hysteria.

The Texas legislature would not provide relief, because the hospitals bribed them. The hospital corporations are profit machines, they have no heart, and they will not change their focus from profit to a national crisis just because one person shows up at the ER.  If they dont have insurance they walk.

To this end many nurses took up the cause for safe nurse patient ratios.  Among these was a woman, a nurse much loved and admired, who was responsible for establishing ¨Texas United Registered Nurses¨ an organization whose sole purpose was ¨safe nurse patient ratios¨.  We lost the fight and Mary Lou could not live with this defeat, she took her own life and is buried in Austin.

We lost because the nurses would not step up to the plate.  

RIP Mary.