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I left the largest acute care facility in Palm Beach County approx. 3 years ago.  We had a 7:1 ratio on most sub-acute (not step-down) floors, however, some floors were accepting an 8:1 ratio.  This included new grads who had just finished preceptorship (including me).  I was shocked to learn this because 7:1 was dangerous in my opinion.  To my knowledge, the ICU had a 2-3:1.   At my first ER job, I had 5 patient rooms, 2 of which were code rooms from 7:00 am to 11:00 am, which believe you me is scary.



What frustrated me the most about this was that the nurses simply complained instead of actually doing something about this.  I recall once, as a new grad off preceptorship, refusing an 8th patient due to patient safety.  My nurse manager became angry with me and threatened to call the director who was off-campus at the time.  I told her to go ahead and call (mostly because at that point I would have been thrilled to be let go.