This is a review/feedback regarding Emergency Room Department in King Fahad Military Hospital in Khamis Mushayt. It's a one of the Armed Forces Hospital in Southern Region. I was working there for more than 1 year)2013 to 2015 as a Nurse and was assigned in Emergency Room Department. Well believe me it's not what I expected when I was in my country(Philippines). Emergency Room Department has 4 different area; ER (Male Patients, ER (Female Patients), Pediatric ER, and Cardiac+Truama Cases. All those area has different Rooms.
Male ER has 14 Bed capacity with 2 to 3 Nurses on duty per shift
Female ER has 12 Bed Capacity with 2 to 3 Nurses on duty per shift
Pediatric ER has 10 Capacity (not sure the exact # as male nurses can't be assigned there) 2 to 3 Nurses duty per shift
Cardiac or Trauma ER has 8 to 10 capacity with 3 to 5 Nurses per shift including the Charge Nurse.
Emergency Room Department in King Fahad Military Hospital is the Busiest (Toxic) area in the hospital.
Only holiday season that the Emergency Room is less crowded but the regular days believe me it's a disaster. From the minute after you receive the previous shift you will no longer have time to warm your ass in a chair as the patient is non stop. You can't even have a 5 minutes time to talk with your colleague as all of you are busy. The only time you can sit is when you take your morning break 15 minutes and on your Lunch Break 45 to 1 hour but believe me even you wanted to consume all the break time you still can't as you have no time to relax at all because of the work load you need to finish. Documentation, procedures, admission, medications and new physician orders needs to carry out but you can adjust and get used of it soon that even you have a over loaded work you can still manage to complete it and anyway you can endorse it to the next shift if you cannot complete it in your shift.
There is also a cases where patients stayed in Emergency Room for more than 24 hours and sometimes, weeks, and a month. This are the patients who are for admissions but there's no vacant Bed or Room in ICU or Wards. Yes!! we do handle ICU or CCU cases in Emergency Room. We call it Pending patients and we call ourselves as pending nurses also. Means we are the one responsible to handle those patients. It's like 1 Nurse and 4 patients sometimes 5 patients. I have handled 3 Bed ridden patients with huge and multiple bedsores and 2 ambulatory patients in one shift, DKA, MI, CKD, etc.. All different cases I think I have already handled it. The hardest part is we are the one who will clean the patient's ass if they pass stools or their diapers are full of urine. On Night shift it's a routine to do Morning Care on those pending patients. You clean their ass, change diaper, change the bed sheets, and sometimes you do bed bath to them(if you have plenty of time). You will extract bloods for routine blood investigations and yes you will be having a excellent skills in inserting IV cannula as most of the patients are geriatric. Believe me even in the the thumbs, fingers or foots of the patient you can insert IV Cannula just to extract blood. But be very careful and always get someone to be your witness or seniors in doing some invasive procedures such as Foley's catheter, NGT, NGT Feeding, medications etc.
SUMMARY:
Experience = Excellent!!!
Workload = Too much(Exhausting)
# of hours per shift = 12 Hours
Salary = 5,540 sar(Fair)
Benefits = Free medical service, Annual Air Ticket, Housing, and transporation
Peers = Depends if you are on weak side or strong side. (Strong means you work so hard and you help your colleagues, Weak means you only do your own job and you don't help your colleagues in other areas). That means if you help them they will help you also. Did you get what I mean? hehe.. Try to be helpful and you will be recognized by your colleague and it will give you a good peer relationship.
Peers = Depends if you are on weak side or strong side. (Strong means you work so hard and you help your colleagues, Weak means you only do your own job and you don't help your colleagues in other areas). That means if you help them they will help you also. Did you get what I mean? hehe.. Try to be helpful and you will be recognized by your colleague and it will give you a good peer relationship.
Location = Weather is not that hot unlike other parts of the Kingdom. If cold season that means extreme cold weather.. less than 20ºc sometimes 4 to 6ºc temp in khamis Mushayt.
Hospital = They have a lot of Filipino staffs there.. you will not feel away from our country.
Patients and PT's Relatives = expect the unexpected. Some of them are nice both Educated and non educated. But most of them are rude and they will verbally abuse you. So be strong and don't fight with them as you will just make yourself in trouble. If they are abusing you just inform your Charge Nurse so he/she can deal with them.
Update: as of 2017
1. The renovation of the Emergency Room Department was completed. The workload base on my former colleague there that the pending patients ratio has increased to 1:7 nurse. I don't know if that is true. if it's true then God bless to the nurses being assigned in Pending patients.
2. Most of the Senior staffs have already left (resigned/end of contract).
3. New Head Nurse
