Does anyone know if there is a law in regards to the number of nurses that are required to work on the floor per certian number of patients? Where I work sometimes we only have one surgical patient and I may be the only nurse and then I may get an aid for help but there is not anyone else in the building. They told me upon hire there would always be 2 nurses at night even if there was only one patient but at times this has not been the case.....

cdnurse said:

It varies from state to state. I worked in one psych hospital and one nurse had 16 patients by herself. No aide, no one. That was not legal.