Throw it on the floor?! - Page 4

I do thrown dirty linen on the floor. where the heck else are you supposed put it? Now if state is around i understand that they say it is not supposed to be on the floor. Can it be on the floor in a bag? Not all residents have a W/C. and how is it acceptable to put it in their chair...ewww. What exactly is acceptable to put underneath it?! a soaker? We dont' have enough of those to use them to take laundry out with!
These are the questions I ask!!!

Crazy bureaucrats that have never touched a real patient should not be allowed to make up all of these rules!! My state's CNA manual and procedure sheets assume that each CNA only has 4 residents (who are pretty independent, only requiring few cares) and that CNAs do EVERYTHING in pairs. So whenever you do peri care on someone, there is magically another aide at your side smiling and holding a trash bag open for you to drop the linens in.

And of course every facility has GOBS of necessary supplies to go around for everyone.

As if!!

That's hilarious!

I think the point of not throwing soiled linen on the floor is to not track microbes around your facilities, and home. For a partial bath usually I use 2 bags, 1 for the dirty brief and 1 for the soiled linen. One trick is to open the bags before you get started, I either place the bag on the foot of the bed (the bag is clean), or tie it on the bed rail or bed side table or hand rail in the bathroom. If I have to choose between safety of my resident or throwing soiled linen on the floor, I'll throw the soiled linen on the floor.

Depends on a few factors. If the task is very easy, I bag it as I go. If I am dealing with a lot of poop, blood, vomit, or need to stay really close the resident - on the floor it goes and I clean it up after the resident has been cleaned up and is safe.

Hi I'm a nurse manager at a LTC facility, I use to be a CNA, LPN, RN, now nurse manager. Throwing linen on the floor is against infection control policy. I usually like to give an education when I catch you the first time. Then if I see it again and I know the aides work very hard I will say "now you know that is against the policy". But the third time is the catcher, I will write them up.

They should be bringing in a small bag for the dirty linens, and diapers, some pull the carts to the door and they work like that. Throwing the linen is terrible, we have to walk on these floors and I dont want to carry germs home, and spread them.


Prevention is the cure.

Yea....I throw it on the floor. Alllllll the time. The thing is the floor is linoleum and the house keepers coming by soon to wash it anyways sooo yeah. If I know ahead of time I'll wheel the linen cart to the door and donut that way instead. But yeah if I'm dealing with a big huge mess you betcha it's goin on the floor. And I use wash cloths too and if it's reallly reallly bad towels. That's not the worst part...... I even throw the linen away sometimes. *shrugs* if it's that bad I wouldn't wanna use it and I'm not gonna let someone else use it. :-0.

"No day but today"

I work night shift so my barrel is right outside the door . If i know it's a big ugly BM mess, though, I usually bring a trash bag in to receive stuff by the Resident on the bed.

I've tried putting pre-opened bags at the foot of the bed, and as soon as you roll the resident over, unless they're extremely short, their feet hit the bags and everything gets dumped on the floor anyway (if the bag hasn't already floated off the bed). And half the time it's still difficult to get the stuff into the bag in the first place when you're trying to hold the resident over and you have poop on your glove, the bag is sticking to itself, etc. Sometimes you can drape a pad (if laundry isn't being stingy with them), over a wheelchair or an open drawer and toss the linens on the pad. As for throwing everything in the trash can, I have to say I can't STAND it when other CNAs do this because most of the time the bag slips down into the can and stuff ends up getting thrown on top of it. And even if the bag stays in place the CNA always takes it out with them without replacing the bag and that drives me nuts. OR they forget to take the bag with them and then I have the housekeeper following me around harassing me about it.

I can see why putting linens on the floor is an infection control issue, but I have so many residents that spit chewed up food and loogies on the floor as well as residents that start whizzing all over the place as soon as you stand them up to get them on the toilet that my shoes are tracking germs all over the place within 10 minutes of my arrival.