...of unit

 

It was quite a good call…. No code blue, code red….I had a call just after I completed the upload of EMR chart. The shift lead of the ICU called me and informed that the ICU is now full and they no longer intake any patient. I was in a mist when I heard such news. Lem did not advice me on any new rules when he passed over the ED to me. I asked the leader about the new regulation. She told me that the ICU director and boss had agreed that there ICU would maintain 12 beds and no extra patient in the future.

Indeed the ICU had been over stressed for the past few years. We would accept any critical patient and there is no such thing that referral because of no bed available in ICU. The bed occupancy rate had most of the time been 105%-110%. The nurses are all stress up.

I pity them but I had to follow the order of da BOSS. I told her politely that no one had told me that I should turned down referral because there is no bed in the ICU, I would forget there conversation as I don’t want to get into any trouble. She told me that the head nurse had told them on the issue when they went off their shift last night. The agreement had been made….I told her that I doubted the decision and I would confirm it later.

During the conference, the issue was raised and Boss had strongly clarified that he had never promised anything even though such conversation had been made. It was a long discussion and the final verdict is the ICU director and Boss would try their best to maintain a 12 beds or less occupancy before they went off. In such case there would be 2 bed spare for critical patient from ED/ward. I had gone back and returned the next day morning before I went to the govt clinic. Lem had told me that our colleague K was barred from admitting a case with pneumothorax s/p chest tube to ICU by the nurses as the nurses had told him that the 2 extra bed is meant to accept case from ward instead of ED. I got really fired, night shift attending physician had been bullied and pushed around. I called up the matron and told her about our situation.

I knew the person behind is definitely the head nurse. She had been pushing us around and tried her best to work less… had been so during her day as asst head nurse….got pissed off as she had tried to spread such lie but still I had to let someone handle her….thing is not going to change if our man power is not increase….