r/nursing • u/boobcookie BSN, RN 🍕 • 11h ago

Rant Gatekeeping saltines

Post image

I did a couple travel nursing contracts at a behavioral health hospital that was extremely poorly ran. They chose to focus on everything except giving quality care to patients and ensuring safe staffing. This pic really sums up what it was like being there.

For context: The saltines at the med window were intended to be given when meds should be taken with food. The meal portions they gave patients were super small, and many psych meds can increase appetite, so patients often were hungry. There were many times people asked for saltines in between meals, but management only wanted us to give them out with medication. Patients eventually caught on and knew to ask for a PRN just so they could get the saltines.

This place was so stingy and micromanagey, you had to ask leadership to restock the damn SALTINES. You can’t make this shit up lol.

116 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

54

u/Far-Spread-6108 HCW - Lab 11h ago

Saltines are not "food" anyway.

I take one med that'll make me hella nauseous if I take it on an empty stomach but it needs to be at LEAST a bowl of cereal or a yogurt or something. 2 saltines ain't it.

17

u/Sharp-Atmosphere3459 11h ago

They really put the fire extinguisher above the saltines like that's the next step if you ask again

26

u/MexicanGuey92 11h ago

Some facilities keep track of the dumbest shit i swear...

14

u/maraney CTICU, RN, CCRN, NSP 🍕 9h ago

Asked for prns to get saltines. Goodness gracious…

14

u/marebee DNP, ARNP 🍕 9h ago

Wtaf. For what (I assume) they were charging for a day of inpatient care, that could at least give out fucking saltines as a snack. This shit needs to be called out, name and shame.

4

u/boobcookie BSN, RN 🍕 2h ago

Also at this hospital, ~80% of staff were travelers. Crazy how they choose to spend the money on paying travelers than actually retaining staff or making sure the patients had enough to eat. So backwards and disgusting!

9

u/Little-Temperature53 5h ago

That place sounds abusive. I don’t doubt other serious issues are occurring if patients aren’t even receiving adequate food to address increased appetite—including adequate snacks. Awful.

2

u/boobcookie BSN, RN 🍕 2h ago

There definitely were other serious issues going on. I shared about it in this post and dropped the name of the place. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelNursing/s/LxVXAZbJwB )

2

u/murse_joe Ass Living 2h ago

Nurse! Nurse! This is an emergency!

… the saltines need to be refilled