Politics and Infection

I swear that not all posts will be bitch rants...but this needs to be said. I don't think I'm the only one with this problem, so here it goes.

So I work in an ICU, but my situation is a bit unusual because we often have patients for anywhere from 2-21 days. It's not uncommon for us to have a patient on average of 14 days, but recently we have had 2 (count them 2) patients for more then 8 weeks! Not because they were sick enough to really need ICU care but because they had ventilators and because of those ventilators they needed to be suctioned...anyone see where I am going here....

So when it comes time to transfer them the conversation goes a bit like this...
floor nurse: "How often do they need suctioning"
ICU nurse: "PO every hour to prevent VAP, inline suctioning Q2hours and PRN"
floor nurse: "Well, we can't take a patient that needs suctioning more then Q2hours."
::conversation over::

So now here is the problem, they're leaving vent patients on the ICUs where they are more likely to get nosocomial infections including VAP because the floor nurses are refusing to do what is necessary to prevent VAP. And because the floor nurses aren't taking the vent patients there numbers look better and we're the ones that are getting yelled at for infection rates, not them.

Not to mention that patients that don't need ICU care are taking up our beds (not that I don't like them) and we have to turn patients away from other hospitals that can't take care of them!!!!) ---another story for another day...just remember for you non-neuro people, NEVER GIVE D5W to a neuro patient when you suspect cerebral edema, I don't care if you're giving Propofol or not!---

Now I get that the floor nurses have more patients then I do and usually only go into a room every 2 hours, but how hard is it really to walk in an do some PO suctioning to get out excess secreations??

Rant over...for now....