Friday, May 09, 2008
~ 'Outbreak' in the Ward ~
8:38:00 pm
It was really a busy day at work today... In fact, it's been a busy week for me ever since I came back to work on Tuesday...
For the past 2 days, I've been the only Staff Nurse, running alone in the team with two juniors... Now, some of you nurses would say that having 3 staffs in a team, with a charge of 11 patients, would be a luxury... But given the load of patients that we have (bedbounds, tube feedings, multiple wound dressing, tracheostomy patients, countless IV medications, etc), we could be left struggling to finish up our tasks that is up all the way to our neck...
Anyway, the MC rate in our ward for the past few days have been pretty bad... Yesterday alone, we had 5 staffs(!) on sick leave... Imagine how bad our situation was and we had to work with the number of staffs that we had... And most of the staffs on sick leave were down with fever and upper respiratory tract infection symptoms such as cough and runny nose... So, with the alarming number of staffs on sick leave, the Infection Control requested that those who were on MC to come back and do nasal and throat swabs...
And due to the 'outbreak', medical staffs, nurses and allied health professionals who enters the ward will have to don masks, so as not to worsen the already-horrible ward situation...
It's kinda scary... A few of my colleagues said that it even reminded them of the SARS period... But I can't afford to fall sick now... Cuz I'm due for my exams on Monday!!
written, NaDiaH eRNiYaNTi
