Re: Hovering Family Members Originally Posted by fuzzywuzzy 
Last night instead of bringing the hoyer into the room I stood in the doorway with it, while my partner kept having to squeeze around this woman, who was to get things ready and ended up chasing her into a piece of furniture. The visitor was like "umm, maybe I could stand over there? Or there?" and we didn't really say anything in response. I remained standing there with the door wide open until she got the hint to LEAVE. Not only is there not enough room for an extra person in there, but she gasps and startles over every little thing. The other night I'm trying to take the patient's shirt off. It was a tanktop. You know how normally you take the arms out one at a time and then the neck... well I go to take her arm out and she goes, "ahhhh omg!!!!" like I was killing the patient. She runs over there and starts taking the shirt off herself, only she can't do it so she's just fussing for 5 minutes while I'm standing there. Anytime I tried to touch the patient she would gasp. So eventually I just butted in and took it off. I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown when I pulled it over her head. Hello? It's a shirt. You have to move the person's body to take it off, unless you literally cut it off. It doesn't just dissolve.
For reasons such as this & your above situation, I ALWAYS ask the family member to leave the room while I give care. I nicely tell them it's a privacy and safety issue for the patient. It usually worked. Unless the relative insisted on helping us with a particular task, they had to go. I made sure the Nurse was ready to back me up, and usually they were. This almost aways ends up affecting the quality of care your patients receive. It has a domino effect too. If you spend all night trying to please one family member, other residents end up getting neglected. Then you have bigger issues to deal with.
I strongly encourage you to have a talk with your charge nurse about this family member. Often, these family members have no medical background so they don't understand what your doing is NOT to hurt the resident. There is a medical basis to almost everything we do and often, families will not understand that. That is why it is important they leave. Having them making faces and sounds at your every move makes everyone nervous and it's especially no good for the resident. Situations like this never turn out good.
I understand if you feel the urgency to refuse care to this resident. Because the family members is already beginning to throw false accusations out there, you don't want to put yourself in the line of fire. This is how good CNA's get into serious trouble.
CYA. I hope it does not come to this....but it is a wise decision on your part to ask for a new assignment. This family member could get you in a world of trouble you do not deserve....
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