Time for a Job Search

I think the time has come to quit dragging my feet and search for a new job. I have stuck with this particular company for just shy of four years and the problems just keeping getting deeper and deeper. I.ADORE.BEING.A.NURSE. Let's get that out in the beginning. I don't like the nursing shortage and what it is doing to companies. Our company has 330 beds and they have been in so much trouble with the state department of public health that we have been on the brink of closing multiple times in the last 2 years (though, thank God the 2 units I work on are awesome and have no problems with the state). The state mandated we decrease our total number of beds and we have done so...it was supposed to be 220. But, then our medical director (whom I am one of the few nurses that has a good working/personal relationship with thanks to a previous job) decided he wanted to close our doors to any new admission until management took back control of the building. So, now our census is approximately 170. They are cutting staff, asking people to take days off, if no one volunteers to take a day off it goes to a lottery system. It is getting scary. The sub-acute respiratory unit I work on is AWESOME. We have the best staff in the building and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I think the time has come. We normally have thirty patients, 2 nurses and 5 nurses aides and a respiratory therapist. We now have 13 patients, 1 nurse, 2 nurses aides and if we are lucky a respiratory therapist. It is too much work for one nurse. Tomorrow I have a 16 hour shift, no respiratory therapy and 4 trach dependent patients that are extremely needy. My 2 nurses aides ran their butts off today trying to get all the patients needs met, but it is impossible. So, I am expecting a long, hard day at work and will be exhausted by the time I get home at midnight. The problem though: I won't be able to sleep. I will wonder and worry about anything I could have possibly forgotten. I am like that. I am a perfectionist and I don't like not having time to spend with my patients, and that has been taken away from me. Two seperate doctors told me today to use them as references because it was time to get out of our facility. Scary. So, I am off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday....time to get the resume's out and about. Sorry for the rambling, just needed to get it off my chest. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend! We will play Sunday Six late because of my work schedule!