Nurses say UNC Hospitals' policy risks patient safety as well as nursing licenses

Two nurses said they and many of their colleagues are being rotated into different units of the hospital complex with little training.

"I think there were just huge safety issues from a patient perspective and then also from a staff perspective," a pediatric nurse said. "We just feel like our nursing license is kind of being put on the line without anyone thinking that through."

Nurses gain specialized skills by working for years in specific areas of a hospital, she said, noting that she understands children's health, not so much adults.

"We know how to act quickly when something is going wrong just from years of being around that population [of children], and when you get into the adult world, things just look really different," she said.

A second nurse agreed.

"I’m worried for the patients that they are not getting the best care that they can, which I hate saying," she said. "I’m not saying there are bad nurses at UNC. I’m just saying that they're not trained to take care of this population, and it’s not their fault."

She said the lack of training and a lower standard of care could get them in trouble with the North Carolina Board of Nursing.

"We’re also concerned that, if something were to happen while we were taking care of these patients, that UNC would not protect us and protect our licenses from retribution," she said.

UNC Health spokesman Alan Wolf acknowledged the rotation policy, saying it was implemented because of staffing pressure caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But he denied that nurses were being put in position to fail by treating patients without training.

"[S]ome of our nursing staff has had to cover areas where they might not routinely work in order to provide safe and excellent patient care. UNC Medical Center’s clinical and nursing leadership has put programs [together] to assist nurses in preparing for caring for these patients," Wolf said in a statement. "We continue to prepare and educate our teams to assist in covering our staffing needs as this pandemic evolves."

If a nurse "feels uncomfortable" with an assignment, he or she should notify a supervisor and request more training, he said.

But the nurses said they presented hospital administrators with some 20 pages of documents outlining their concerns and questions about the policy, and a planned meeting on the issue was canceled.

"We just feel like we are not being supported, and we’re not even being listened to," the pediatric nurse said. "I think that we have shown throughout these last couple months that we’re willing to step in and help as needed, but we just want to do so in a way that’s safe and in a way that we’re supported and in a way that best addresses patient safety and staff safety."

The nurses also expressed concern about caring for COVID-19 patients and then having to return to their normal duties caring for patients who aren't infected, some of whom may be at higher risk from coronavirus because they have weakened immune systems.

Wolf said all nurses are given enough protective gear to ensure that they and their patients will be safe.