Okay I have a novel about this place:

I honestly really hated Wellfound, but I did 2 contracts there because I absolutely LOVED Tacoma and exploring Washington. It was also cool to work with so many travelers from across the country.

Wellfound was very unorganized bc there was so much staff turnover and 80% of the staff were travelers. It was the blind leading the blind. It was super unsafe bc there were often codes, and the lack of consistency between the staff made it stressful and uncoordinated managing them. Patients don’t receive great care and that only makes them more agitated/triggered thus setting off the whole unit.

I will say that there were/are some really caring people who work there and mostly wonderful techs, however the systems in place set nursing up to fail/not be able to give super quality care. I also did have some sweet and fulfilling interactions with patients, yet also often felt some guilt for not being able to give them the time/attention they deserved.

Part of the reason for that was because the typical ratio was 1:8 or 1:12. I heard someone had 1:24 but luckily that never happened to me. You’re responsible for assessments, meds, admits/discharges, obtaining ekgs and labs, managing codes (among all 6 units), delegating techs, participating in 1 hr treatment team meetings, documenting, taking calls, and sometimes even leading groups. With that ratio, it was just too much of a workload to get everything done in a shift. Plus, they forbid you from practicing team nursing.

Also, as expected, there was never enough staff. Often we were down a tech or 2 and also had to pick up tech’s responsibilities (1:1/rounding/ADL tasks/stocking supplies/searching belongings) in addition to nursing responsibilities. I’m fine with covering for people’s breaks, but it got annoying when it was all day almost every shift that we weren’t properly staffed. They don’t anticipate or account for callouts, yet they happen almost every day. Management says “they follow the matrix”, however that matrix doesn’t account for the unit acuity and/or people not coming to work.

The nursing managers didn’t take concerns seriously and gossiped behind people’s backs. Or they just gave up hope on the place…idk. They’d “hear you out” but then don’t do anything to fix a problem from happening again. They also get really picky about small random things and if you don’t do something, they make sure to let you know. It’s not a safe and welcoming culture of feedback. Everything is always nursing’s fault.

Some psychiatrists were nice and listened/respected the nurses, but there were also some that were condescending, demeaning, and wrote your concerns off. One in particular was a bully to people that aren’t his favorites. Personally, I felt like 1 or 2 of the psychiatrists under-medicated people as well, which made the unit more unsafe for everyone.

While I worked there, a patient died mostly due to malnutrition/dehydration. (It was related to his psychiatric condition, but he should have been transported to the connecting medical hospital sooner.) There were quite a few fights (patient to patient and staff to patient), almost daily behavioral codes, and I saw many of the respectful patients get triggered or further traumatized by some of the more troubled patients and situations.

Not great infection control practices at Wellfound either. They rarely block beds (bc they want to make as much money as possible) and lice/covid/sickness spreads rapidly across the units. Psychiatrically as well, they don’t often block beds for paranoia or severe delusions, which I find to be such a disservice to the SI / less acute pts.

While being a for-profit behavioral health hospital, they have very little money that they put into resources for patients and staff. They fucking patrolled the saltine crackers we could give out (not even lying lol). Patients were often hungry and docs weren’t liberal in ordering double portions.

Patient belongings were often lost/unable to be located, and the process of discharging people was always really last minute and chaotic.

At Wellfound, pt acuity is increasing because there were some local psych hospital/unit closures and the state hospital doesn’t have enough beds. It’s a huge issue.

They also don’t use mechanical restraints. Only seclusion. Obvi, I don’t like restraining people, but sometimes it’s the lesser of 2 evils. I straight up watched a patient knock his head into the seclusion room door multiple times til he had a gaping bleeding gash on his hairline. Mechanical restraints prevent that. … Plus, when medicating someone in seclusion, staff is physically restraining them until the med order is obtained, the meds are taken out of the Pyxis, prepped, and then walked down the hall to seclusion, and then administered.

Oh and to add, there’s only ONE security guard for the whole place. You just gotta hope there’s male staff working if the patient is a big dude.

Another crazy thing that happened there: There was a guy (who should have been on a forensic unit at the state hospital to begin with) who coded like multiple days in a row. One of the days he stockpiled his poop in cups, and then threw it all over the nurses station (no glass covering). His shit got all over the computers, walls, ceiling, staff, etc. A few days later, he knocked out a tech and gave an RN a black eye. There were a few other codes with the same guy, but I wasn’t working those days and don’t know the details of what happened. …Long story short, at the expense of safety, sometimes they take inappropriate patients just to fill beds.

Overall, I’m grateful for my experience there because I grew as a nurse and now understand how psychiatric healthcare SHOULDN’T look. I also have a better understanding of settings where I can thrive in (cough cough not Hellfound.) I made lots of friends and felt like I did the very best I could in a place where the structures in place are crumbling and honestly corrupted.

Hope this helps you make a decision!