Nurses as Housekeepers at Vanderbilt Medical Center: An Untold Story Behind the Story
by Rosemary Gibson, Senior Advisor, The Hastings Center and Author, Battle Over Health Care: What Obama’s Reform Means for America’s Future
Hospital budget cuts became viscerally visible earlier this month when Vanderbilt Medical Center announced that nurses must now perform housekeeping duties — cleaning patients’ rooms and bathrooms.
In case you missed the video of the internal announcement secretly recorded by a nurse that aired on Nashville’s WSMV television station, here it is.
It is hard to think of a worse way to demoralize professionals who want to practice at the top of their license. Invoking Florence Nightingale’s name as a spoonful of sugar to help the budget medicine go down is no salve for deep wounds of disrespect.
For patients, they are at greater risk, an inevitable outcome as nurses spend less time at the bedside.
All of this begs the question, “Where does all the money go…
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Posted on January 3, 2014, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
ofcourseitsaboutyou 
When a person is admitted into a hospital it is for nursing care. Yes they are seen by their doctor and/or have surgery but they stay because they need the expertise that a only a nurse can provide. Nurses are trained in infection control but not in how to clean bathrooms and floors. Every time a nurse is pulled away from a patient to perform tasks that are not DIRECTLY related to the patient they are no longer caring for the patient. I believe that the housekeeping staff is trained in how to clean the bathrooms, floors and the other equipment in the rooms. Nurses are not and they should be taken off the floor and given the necessary training to do these duties….more time away from the patients. Who will be caring for the patients while the nurses are otherwise occupied? There are other people in the hospital that are not at the bedside that can be used for this duty. It will give these other staffers a better understanding of the reasons why nurses need to remain at the bedside to provide educated professional care.
I have been a nurse for 40 years. The hospital I worked at during the years 1970 through 1980 the evening and night shift intensive care nurses always had to clean our own rooms after pt discharge and get ready for the next admit.Plus most of the time we were already short staffed. I remember us being under great stress to get it done in 5 minutes or less because we didn’t have time to be away from our patients much longer than that. Ask yourself how well do you think you can clean a room in 5 minutes? Do you want to sleep in that bed? Vanderbilt needs to cut jobs at the top, starting with the manager who sent the e-mail about Florence Nightingale. Vanderbilt also needs to ask themselves how much does it cost to train a really good nurse? Because you are fixing to see your nursing staff leave your sinking ship like rats.
UNBELIEVABLE—I AM A DISABLED, FORCED TO RETIRE DUE TO INABILITY TO PERFORM MY WORK DUTIES B/C A MAN TRIED TO GET INTO HERE IN GADSDEN. I LOVED MY WORK—-SURGICAL NURSE FOR 6 YEARS, THEN TO HOSPICE WHERE THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED. I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO BE DOWN THERE, MAKE NEW FRIENDS, NOT HURT AND BE ABLE TO SAY TGIF LOL. THIS IS ONE PLACE THO THAT MIGHT GET A NASTY REPLY AND A PETITIONED WALK-OUT!!!! JENI MAC, GADSDEN, AL
Companies or Hospitals are in the business of making a profit, even though Nurses care for patients they are used solely to profit the business ,no matter what…they better provide all essentials that is needed to keep those people alive and safe from all harm while following all standards in Health Care protocols or else. That’s why its such a high-turnover rate in this business. So being a Florence Nightingale is no joke. You have to be dedicated, flexible, and Christ-like with angel wings to get things done. But after its all done and said, injuries occur from working at such a fast pace. Hopefully a nurse can make a comeback in another area in the Healthcare field. If the injuries sustained while doing this line or work(from all the heavy lifting, twisting, and turning required) are not too devastating and is given another chance at productivity at their work level. I am a Nurse an LPN, and with over 20yrs of experience in the Nursing Home Industry and this is my story.
I had to look up more information after reading this article. Vanderbilt states in the article post in the link below that the nurses turn over rooms that have high flow. Let’s not get our panties in a bunch quite yet. As a traveling nurse, I have worked in many hospitals. In high flow area’s, like PACU, the Emergency Dept, and Med/Surg holding units, the nurses do clean the rooms between patients. Sometimes a housekeeper cannot get there in time in between patients. In the article they also state that they are actually hiring more people for housekeeping. My point being, is that it is not uncommon to clean a room between patients by sanitizing equipment in between patients in a holding area, an ED room, or in the PACU. I think this story was perhaps blown out of proportion.
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/perioperative-cleaning-processes/