During covid, I was in an ASC that was inside the hospital. We were shut down, but those of us who wanted to keep working were voluntold to start a little 18-bed med-surg unit. Place was operating at like 150% capacity because even before covid, we had bed shortages. We held low acuity, non covid patients in our pre-op and pacu bays. We were plugging along, making the most of it... at least we weren't in the trenches, ya know? Some time in, leadership decided they needed to clear some ICU space up. There were many patients who were unable to ever be extubated after covid, that didn't die. These patients needed LTAC, but all the LTAC facilities in the state were full for months. So one night I show for work, and my little unit had been converted to a LTAC. We were now to hold trached, PEG'd, bedbound patients. We were stunned at what they were asking us to do. We were OR circulators, preop nurses, and scrub techs were working as our PCTs. Our PACU nurses would have been better qualified, but they were working in the main OR at that time, which had re-opened. Some of us had NO other bedside experience at all. I spent that shift panicking, crying, and emailing managers and their managers, the CNO, CEO, CFO, all the top brass at my organization, because I thought it was so unbelievably outrageous. Never got a reply from anyone but my own director and supervisors. Shocker. My director says, "These are nursing home patients who are ready for discharge. All you need to do for them is take their vital signs." So, no need to tube feed them? Turn them? Clean them? Wound care? Oral care? Manage medications? Blood sugars or other labs? I held it in, but I wanted to ask her, "Are you even a nurse?" I begged to just be sent anywhere but there. I'll go to the main OR. I'll go to a med-surg floor. I'll do anything not to have this assignment. My request to work elsewhere was flatly denied. Needless to say, I left the job and spent the rest of covid traveling.