productivity

yesterday was the most boring day i have ever experienced at work. weekends tend to be slower since, for no other reason, most agencies are closed on the weekend, so unless all the paper work for discharges, transfers etc. are done and submitted on friday, it aint happing til monday. there were only two admissions on saturday and none on sunday, and there were only kaiser insurance discharges, and since kaiser is an entity in and of itself, they take care of all their own discharge/aftercare planning. i had finished all the paperwork left undone for monday on saturday, so all that was left for me to do was to run a 10:30 relapse prevention group and a family meeting at one in the afternoon.


except for the family meeting, this was the type of day on which i would have given up my pay, knowing that i was quite without purpose, and just gone on home. listening to the nurses, hospital administration is all about productivity, and to save money, they often leave nurses and unit secretaries with large amounts of work because they draw a line on the census level, and if it is one patient low, they will call a nurse and a secretary off, and there i sit, doing my crossword puzzle, trying to help with the phones (which dont ring as much when the census is low, but since we have two floors and only one secretary on low days, one floor is left with no one to pick-up), and feeling mildly guilty that i am making money for nothing, while i watch the nurses scramble to pick up their larger case loads (but theres nothing i can do to help the nurses really).

i really do wonder about the "bottom line", and why it is staffing where they make the cuts. productivity should not be more important then the client. maybe i live in utopia, but it is a strange set-up that i think could use reconsideration and redesign

Song of the day: city of new orleans- arlo guthrie