Um, so I was rounding to make sure the rooms were picked up and the stirrups away and the rooms set back to neutral when I noticed a nurse was still in the department.
She was cleaning and organizing room 5.
She’d spent a bulk of the day cleaning and organizing room 6 for the advent of cases.
She asked me to approve of her changes and I did.
In room 6.
In room 5 she put unsterile specimen containers above the computer in the computer station.
Because the room might need them.
I looked past her to the substerile room that was 1 door and 5 feet away and asked, “Like the ones in the substerile cabinet. That is 5 feet away.”
She said yes, and sometimes people didn’t like to leave their rooms.
I repeated, “5 FEET away is too far?”
She didn’t speak to me the remaining 4 minutes of her shift.
I felt like the little kid who was collecting money for the newspaper and all he wanted was 2 dollars.
Sheesh.
Five feet away and it is too far to walk.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 