Guaranteed Healthcare

I was a staff nurse here in my hometown at a for-profit that bought us out. They came in and changed a lot of things, but thanks to our right to work, law and lack of organization, you have no rights in this state as an employee. A lady who had no insurance had a repair of a rectal prolapse. The original surgeon went out of town immediately after the surgery. We got her into the bed post op and she grabbed my arm and said now honey, don't let me die. I reassured her she was in the right place, and I would not be her nurse for the day, since I had my own group of eight coming and going.

She bled continually from the incision site. AFTER MULTIPLE CALLS TO THE ON CALL SURGEON HE FINALLY CAME OVER AT 1800 hrs!! He said this is just a skin bleed, and put two sutures in the incision with any indication to the patient or myself. I told the people i was working with, a new grad, a retiree back in practice, an agency nurse also, that it look more arterial to me, and it might start back. sure enough it did, after multiple calls no one came, no one ever took her back to surgery, and I was off for three days and when I came back she had coded that AM. I ran to the unit, where they were in the process of coding her again.

She did not make it, and I came back to my floor. with tears in my eyes, one of the surgeons said what's wrong, and I told him that the lady in 229 had died. It was his partner's patient, and had been called about her bleeding numerous times. He said, "Oh, was that the one who had no insurance?" I said she was a woman a human, who laid right here and died over a period of days, because no one had the time to take her back and fix the bleed. I looked around and saw that her death meant nothing to anyone.

I was really devastated that I had allow this horrible company to overload me and use my practice for their great greed. I went home that night, had a GI bleed, went to surgery the next morning, received eight units of blood, and was hospitalized where I worked for almost two weeks. I had to go out on FMLA, and was out, I tried every way to go back while I was on IV FE, weekly but my AD said I had to be out even though I had been cleared by the MD, she sat up appointments with me, and never kept a one, never calling to cancel either. I had to go to the doctor one more time, and it was at the end of my FMLA, one day was all I needed I had planned to work Wed, Thurs, Fri, but instead I got a certified letter in the mail relieving me of my duties there after all of my years there.

I have always asked too many questions about, staffing, and budget, and once brought the company's stock report to work, that stated my down-slide, plus the fact that the CNO asked me why morale was so bad, I told her, we are not appreciated, we are worked to death, expected to train all of the new grads, working with agency people making a great deal more money when the company would not give us the same deal, even though we know that place inside and out they would rather pay stranger's big bucks to cover a shift!

So that is what caring about your patients here in the south. RETALIATION IS ALIVE AND WELL HERE IN HICKORY, NC!

GOD PLEASE HELP THE AMERICAN NURSE.