Today I had my first night shift in the hospital. it all started out quite nerve racking initially, and soon things began to calm down, and patients began to go to sleep. its really quite different at night compared to the normal duties in the day hours.
first of all, theres few of us around roaming the hospital, in my ward there was 2 healthcare assistants, 2 nurses and an oncall foundation doctor who seems to always disappear off into and out of the ward. the ground rules for healthcare assistants are: no music, no loud talking/gossiping, there is always something there to be done, turn patients at 10pm, 2am and 6am. pad change at 10pm and 6am. check the hourly catheters, ensure paperwork is completed and the sluice room, commodes and bed pans are clean & tidy. you then move on to update the kitchen boards, and be available for when you are needed in the event of a new admission, ensure patients are comfortable and answer call bells promptly. in the final hour prepare breakfast and ask patients what they want. following this, assist patients with breakfast.
simple enough the night shift goes as quick as any shift. make sure to get some sleep or stay up the night before so you do end up sleeping in the day ready for your night shift. the sleepy feeling should only kick in at 5am, but should be tolerable till 7.30 when your shift ends.
for nurses, its first stats checks at 9pm, followed by drug rounds at 10pm. following this and pad changes, its lights out for patients, and documentations are written out. duty boards get updated, kardex and Realtime updates are done. any patient requesting extra pain relief medications are flexible dependent on whats been prescribed and the allowed dosage. this should continue, when a new admission is received its handover, followed by admission papers and risk assessments are implemented. social history as well as the medical history is taken, swabs for MRSA are done, stats checks, admission packs given and so on... you're also expected to help your healthcare assistants >.>
for my first night shift i feel like i have coped quite well. following the scheme of things, it was not as bad as i had previously anticipated, though the healthcare assistant i was working with had a disregard to patient care.. she simply wanted to get things done on time, did not take much regard for how the patients felt to be handled at the early hours of the night/waking up at 2am to be repositioned and with so much going on around it was almost impossible for the patients to get sleep. it might have felt like a quiet night, but being in a hospital there is always something going on.
