A while back on a Saturday, we had four admits to Med/Surg in 4 hours. We were generously allowing them 30 minutes to recover after each admission before calling for a bed assignment on the next. But nobody was answering the phone down there when the Lpn I was working with was trying to call report on the 3rd one.
This kind of nonsense never happened before they remodeled the department and got caller ID. Now, it happens on a regular basis. Don't want another admit? No problem. Just don't ever answer the phone.
She'd tried a couple of times with no response before taking a break from the nurse's desk to get a snack. When she came back, she tried the number again. Again, no answer.
"They were all sitting at the desk when I went past there to go to the cafeteria, just now." she told me, holding the receiver up in the air, the persistent ringing emitting through the earpeice. "They're just sitting there letting it ring."
I was charge and the longer that phone rang without an answer, the pisseder I got. So.....I headed down the hall to the nurse's station, sticking strategically close to the wall the furthest from view of the Med/Surg nurse's desk, I could see the hospitalist writing orders at the desk, a frown on his face trying to drown out the incessant ringing of the phone in front of him. Then, the charge nurse, a gal I used to sort of respect, walks over, picks up the receiver and then sets it back down to stop the ringing. Oh, no the fuck you didn't!
She knew she was busted as soon as she saw me.
Are ya'll not answering the phone today, Brenda?
(Smiling), No.
Sonya's been calling down here trying to give report for 25 minutes. (the hospitalist nodded confirmation) You know, all you have to do is be professional and pick up the phone and say you can't take the patient right now and we'd wait. Don't just let the phone ring.
No response. No longer smiling.
Miraculously, when I got back to the ED, the Lpn was talking to a floor nurse, giving report. Later she told me she had to use her cell phone so they wouldn't recognize the number.
I wrote the incident up, included every detail, determined to bust their scam wide open. And then I slipped in into the shred container. Relations are always strained between departments and the way I looked at it, this "one up" might get us further with Med/Surg in the future than getting their asses hung out to dry with administration, as they should've been. Subjecting them to a public flogging might do us more harm than good. If we kept our mouths shut on this one, they'd surely be in our back pockets for a while.
When I went back to work on Tuesday, I was called into the boss's office. The charge nurse on Med/Surg had written up a complaint because we'd admitted four patients in 4 hours.
You. Gotta. Be. Shittin'. Me.
As fate would have it, however, it doesn't take long for what goes around to come around and my story doesn't end here.
The next weekend Sonya and I worked together we got a call from admissions. The family is bringing Brenda, the Med/Surg charge nurse, in by private vehicle. She's having stroke symptoms. Sure enough, in a few minutes, here comes a wheelchair with Brenda looking like somebody'd pulled the plug on her beach ball.
You know, if you're gonna be a dick to the ED staff, you really oughta not do it in a town where there's only one hospital and then go have a breast augmentation and have to be attended to by the same nurses you fucked the weekend before.
Sonya and I converged upon her and it only took a couple of questions to realize she wasn't having a stroke at all but only got a little too stoned from her pain medication. Sonya started her IV and I was her primary nurse. We didn't have to say or do anything. Just knowing we had her by the balls (boobs?) was all it took. And she knew it, too. Sort of broke the ice for all of us after an awkward moment and they answer the phone when we try to call report, now. Most of the time, anyway.
Oh, one more thing, though. When Sonya was starting her IV, Brenda asks us to keep the door shut so nobody can see her and know about her surgery.
"We got your back, sister," Sonya tells her, only what she meant to say was, "We got you back, Beotch!".
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