Let's get back to the original topic...The Gropinator and nurses.
Ahnuld issued an emergency order to raise the patient/nurse ratio on a med-surg unit from 5 patients per nurse to 6 patients per nurse. Now, I would have given my right arm to have had only had 6 patients when I worked on med/surg/telemetry. More often than not I had 10-12 patients on any given night. At least half of these were active chest painers who I'd be titrating drips on all night with the other half being nursing home patients who were confused and trying to crawl out of their beds. And then, there'd be the nights when we had 4 nurses, 4 aides, 48 patients and two codes running simultaneously at opposite ends of the unit. And let's not forget the rummy that would come up from the ER with an active GI bleed, DT's and puking blood all over the floor.
So, while I would not normally support increasing the patient to nurse ratios, nurses in California should be grateful that they would've only had to take 6 patients. I would love to see such ratios nation-wide, but until we get far more grads through nursing school than we currently have, it'll never happen. So, my advice to the nurses in California is to enjoy what they've got while they've got it, because it's not going to last.