What if the nurse who will cover your patients after your shift will be late?
Asked by jesslistenstomae
as a nurse, what should you do if you're about to get off from work and the nurse who will be in charge of your patients calls and says she'll be 30min-1hr late? i would assume you would just have to stay until she gets there. is there another option or a better answer?

Best Answer:
It is the responsibility of the charge nurse and/or staffing office to make sure there is a nurse to cover your patients at the end of your shift. You should never be expected to automatically stay. . . although they could ask you, you still can say no. Most states have laws or at the very least hospitals have policies which prohibit nurses from working mandatory overtime due to staffing issues. If for some strange reason the hospital was not covering you, you cannot just leave your patients without nursing care and to leave would be considered patient abandonment and your license could be suspended. But this practically never happens because of the procedures that are in place that I mentioned above. The answerer "C" below must not know of the policies and laws that protect nurses from having to work mandatory overtime. It is the exception when this happens and not the standard, otherwise nurses would be leaving the profession in droves.
RN
Answered by Jill

You would have to stay until she gets there or ask another nurse to cover for you. Good Luck!
Answered by peaches6

No majority of the facilities can accomidate issues like that, and nurses tend to care for there own, so I have never had to stay unless I volunteered.
Answered by Bobbie

It is called mandatory, forced overtime. In nursing you can be forced to stay and do a double shift. Their shift plus yours. Every hospital has to have a specific nurse to patient ratio (like 1 nurse to every 4 patients, etc). So if the next nurse calls in sick last minute. Or is late, you have to stay! Doesnt matter what you have planned that day/night. You have no choice. You must stay until you are relieved (someone comes in to replace you). There is NO other option. The only thing you personally could do is call nurses you are friends with (who arent at work at that time) who already work for that hospital and call them and ask them to come in to relieve you. However if no one else comes in, you are stuck there until the nurse who's shift it is comes in or her shift ends and another nurse comes in.
Answered by C

In the ER, when a nurse is late; the going off nurse gives report to the charge nurse who cares for the patient unless it is more than a hour; then staffing office is called for a replacement. We also try & help the charge if necessary.
Answered by Diane A