12 Hour Shifts

My nursing schedule here is just as crazy as my schedule at home. No real constancy from week to week. On the ship, the ward nurses work eight hour day or evening shifts during the week. Ten hour night shifts during the week and 12 hour day shifts and night shifts during the weekend. The management team designed the schedule in this manner hoping to give all ward nurses every other weekend off. I like the schedule, but I could use specific prayer for my 12 hour shifts. I am used to working 12 hour shifts in America, so that is not the problem. The problem is the difference in 12 hour shifts here. Time seems to stand still during my 12 hour shifts. I feel like I am on the ward forever and the odd thing is I get more breaks here than at home, which makes me even more mad at myself for struggling with these shifts. At home I get a 15 minute coffee break, if I am lucky, and a 30 minute lunch on a 7am-7pm 12 hour shift. But time goes really quickly! Here we get to 30 minutes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which is really nice so I cannot complain about that. Yet, the shifts still wear me out. I already told you nursing is SO different here, but in case you don't understand how different, just believe me, it is REALLY different. There is almost nothing to do during the 12 hours and the small ward seems to close in and get even smaller. I cannot imagine how the patients feel because they are here sometimes months at a time. We try to entertain them and break the day up, but still there is a lot of down time. Each day the patients watch two movies. The morning movie is a fun, secular film such as Madagascar or the Black Stallion. In the evening we show a film based on the Bible. The Biblical videos are excellent. The patients love them. If our patients are here for three weeks they will watch either the entire New Testament or Old Testament. In the film Jeremiah, Jeremiah is actually played by the actor who plays McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy. The movies are quality! We also take our patients outside to the dock or upper deck for some fresh, not so fresh, Liberian air. Occasionally we have craft time as well. All these activities are excellent, but they only consume a few hours of each shift. We could have constant activity and entertainment opportunities on the ward, but we do not want to create an environment so vastly different from where our patients live. Our patients are already in shock from being around so many white people, on a ship, with air conditioner, and being served 3 meals a day. It would actually do more harm for them emotionally and mentally if we provided such an incredible place for them that they did not want to leave and they actually suffered from depression upon returning home. There has to be a fine line in the care we provide. All that to say, I find myself getting really tired during my shifts from purely having nothing to do. On to the next item of business. I really need you to pray for me because we are losing 13 nurses this month and only three are coming. We are down 16 nurses starting the beginning of July. We are currently low on staff and have only three of our four wards open. In two weeks, we will be closing another ward and moving to all 12 hour shifts. We are so short on nurses it is necessary to make this change. I will be working either three or four 12 hour shifts each week. YIKES! Please pray for my strength and health. God is awesome and he has carried me through my night shifts, so I know I can do this through him, but HOLY COW! Pray for more nurses, my strength, and my sanity. Management says we are going to trial this schedule for a month then go from there. So, if you are a nurse, start applying now! I love all of you so much. Take care!