Are you guys getting lunch breaks?

Obligatory long time lurker, first time poster. ED RN.

It was a rough night. Our hourly census for most of the night was 110+ in a 50-bed ED, not including hallway beds. Boarders, flu, yada yada, I won’t bore you with details you can probably already fill in the gaps on.

At one point, I had finally finished everything I needed to do for a medically complex patient when she tells me she needs the bedpan. I was 11 hours into a 12-hour balls-to-the-wall shift, I hadn’t had a single bite of food to eat, and I just left the room and cried. I had been telling myself for hours that after I do x, I’ll do y, then eat, but things kept snowballing and it never happened.

That got me talking to a travel nurse who told me they hadn’t had a lunch since starting at or facility. I told them I haven’t taken a lunch break in 4 years.

Is this the norm? Are your departments providing adequate coverage/resources for you to step away and eat a sandwich? We’re not “allowed” to eat at the nurses station, but since the culture is that no one gets a lunch, management looks the other way.