morning meetings

Once a month, I go to a Unit Based Team Representative meeting. This one is going to involve conversations about staffing, designed to expedite the usual process. Where I work, the staffing matrix, per contract, is agreed upon, after some compromise, by the workers and the manager (and the number crunchers). This time, however, the mandate is to cut deeper than we have before, which is bothersome on several levels.

In a "patient centered" sort of environment, why don't we ask the patient what they think about cutting nursing hours? Maybe I'm wrong, and they'd appreciate longer waits for their call lights, longer waits their meds or for bathroom assists, less attention to people with fall risks; maybe they'd rather sleep than have their vitals checked on a regular basis, or their dressings changed on a regular basis. Or maybe certain priorities are wack, and certain budgets should be adjusted.