Families from Hell

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I know that when people are in the hospital everyone is stressed out including the families; but man I can't stand when the families do all the talking for the patient, jump down my throat like a poor waitress that just brought them an undercooked steak, and question me like I was on trial for everything that has happened during the hospital stay for the past 2 weeks when it is my first day I've even laying eyes on the patient. This happened yesterday and I did what I always do: talk directly to the patient, answer the family with very short but firm answers and then redirect the conversation/questions back to the patient, let the charge/supervisor know the family is out of control (although I found out that all staff/physicians avoid the room at all costs). At the end of the shift the patient thanked me told me I was very attentive and even the family. Hate to say it but it didn't make me feel any better. I would have done everything I did do with out being bullied.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i work in the icu. regarding annoying/demanding families...

we have a little passive-aggressive technique that we sometimes use, in which we remove the visitor's chairs from the pt's room (when family is not present or steps out, obviously). we find its pretty helpful in encouraging them to not stay too long and get comfortable

that only works if everyone is on the same page. i've tried that and the secretary just brings them more chairs, even offering them mine! lots of nurses offer their own chairs to the family, but at 52 and after back surgery working full time to save up the pto and the money for a knee replacement, i'm not giving them my chair, even if they are old and frail. they can go sit in the waiting room when they get tired; i have to be there!

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

timely thread, this. we have a patient in the icu who has been here for the past three weeks. his son is a physician who lives about an hour away and rarely visits, and his wife never leaves the hospital. we believe she has some form of dementia, a short term memory deficit and some health problems. she stays in the patient's room most of the day, wearing the same ankle-lenth quilted down coat buttoned up to her chin all the time. if you ask her to leave, for whatever reason, she goes out to stand by the elevator and cry and wail. some visitors called security on her because she was sitting on the floor rocking and shrieking "i have to get to xyz hospital because my husband is there," over and over and over. (she was at xyz hospital.) security took her away for a short while, but she was back before morning.

some of our charge nurses, who felt sorry for her, were letting her sleep in an empty patient bed. that wasn't the best idea, but when other patients started complaining that they woke up and found her hovering over their beds, sobbing and staring at them, the surgeons (not management) put a stop to staying overnight in the icu. now she sleeps in the 24 hour cafeteria, or so i'm told. her son came to get her once, but left without her. so the poor lady lives at the hospital and doesn't really seem to have a clue what's going on.

i think we ought to take her to the er for mental status changes and let them admit her and work her up. but i'm in the minority . . . .

meanwhile, nurses are feeding her, giving her money and blankets and letting her wander around our enormous hospital.

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I work in an Out patient Endoscopy Center. We have a doctor who is excellent, but he is constantly late and behind schedule. Guess who hears all the complaints and gets treated badly? Me. the Pre-Op Nurse. I have gotten to where I say, "I understand. I would be hungry and bored and anxious too. Please let the doctor know how you feel." Do they? nooooooo. WHen he rushes in and says "Sorry for the delay" they ALWAYS say "Oh thats ok, doctor." Grrrrrrrrrrr

Ha Ha! That happens in dental too! If the dentist makes them wait forever for an exam or whatever; they'll whine and moan and give me a hard time, but as soon as the dentist comes in and says: "Sorry for the wait" it's "Oh, that's OK doc":uhoh3: Brother....it's this kind of behavior that makes the doctors think we're exaggerating when we complain about patient's attitudes.

Question: Are families allowed to assist in any way? Such as, could the family be allowed to bring the patient water or coffee or assist them to the bathroom or whatever little tasks need doing? I'm just putting myself in the position of the family and thinking that if I had some "chores" I'd be a lot more useful and a lot less annoying and I'd feel better about my time spent in the hospital. What is the policy on these kinds of things?

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Specializes in Staff nurse.
timely thread, this. we have a patient in the icu who has been here for the past three weeks. his son is a physician who lives about an hour away and rarely visits, and his wife never leaves the hospital. we believe she has some form of dementia, a short term memory deficit and some health problems. she stays in the patient's room most of the day, wearing the same ankle-lenth quilted down coat buttoned up to her chin all the time. if you ask her to leave, for whatever reason, she goes out to stand by the elevator and cry and wail. some visitors called security on her because she was sitting on the floor rocking and shrieking "i have to get to xyz hospital because my husband is there," over and over and over. (she was at xyz hospital.) security took her away for a short while, but she was back before morning.

some of our charge nurses, who felt sorry for her, were letting her sleep in an empty patient bed. that wasn't the best idea, but when other patients started complaining that they woke up and found her hovering over their beds, sobbing and staring at them, the surgeons (not management) put a stop to staying overnight in the icu. now she sleeps in the 24 hour cafeteria, or so i'm told. her son came to get her once, but left without her. so the poor lady lives at the hospital and doesn't really seem to have a clue what's going on.

i think we ought to take her to the er for mental status changes and let them admit her and work her up. but i'm in the minority . . . .

meanwhile, nurses are feeding her, giving her money and blankets and letting her wander around our enormous hospital.

talk about neglect and emotional abuse by the son!! call social services and see what can be done. god bless the nurses who are lending a hand, but we shouldn't enable this son to neglect his mom in the quise of her wanting to be with her husband. i am with you...she needs a workup. hugs to all the staff who are advocating for this poor soul.

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Specializes in Orthopedics/Med-Surg, LDRP.

i think we ought to take her to the er for mental status changes and let them admit her and work her up. but i'm in the minority . . . .

meanwhile, nurses are feeding her, giving her money and blankets and letting her wander around our enormous hospital.

wow, i agree with the above poster that she should be referred to social services. this should have been taken care of after the first incident and the son forced to come and take her away lest social services or the police be called for elderly abuse. i'm sure he'd move his md butt quick enough with that. stuff like this burns me up. it's like people get old and they're disposable. :angryfire

she certainly needs an advocate as her son nor husband are willing/able to do it.

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timely thread, this. we have a patient in the icu who has been here for the past three weeks. his son is a physician who lives about an hour away and rarely visits, and his wife never leaves the hospital. we believe she has some form of dementia, a short term memory deficit and some health problems. she stays in the patient's room most of the day, wearing the same ankle-lenth quilted down coat buttoned up to her chin all the time. if you ask her to leave, for whatever reason, she goes out to stand by the elevator and cry and wail. some visitors called security on her because she was sitting on the floor rocking and shrieking "i have to get to xyz hospital because my husband is there," over and over and over. (she was at xyz hospital.) security took her away for a short while, but she was back before morning.

some of our charge nurses, who felt sorry for her, were letting her sleep in an empty patient bed. that wasn't the best idea, but when other patients started complaining that they woke up and found her hovering over their beds, sobbing and staring at them, the surgeons (not management) put a stop to staying overnight in the icu. now she sleeps in the 24 hour cafeteria, or so i'm told. her son came to get her once, but left without her. so the poor lady lives at the hospital and doesn't really seem to have a clue what's going on.

i think we ought to take her to the er for mental status changes and let them admit her and work her up. but i'm in the minority . . . .

meanwhile, nurses are feeding her, giving her money and blankets and letting her wander around our enormous hospital.

the nurses are being so sweet, but i am amazed that the hospital doesn't deal with this? where i live, doesn't matter which hospital, that lady would have a state case worker on her in no time - i know because my husband does this kind of thing for the mass department of mental health. she needs somebody keeping tabs on her, definitely.

why don't your colleagues agree with you? the er is exactly the place where this kind of situation gets dealt with.

diahni

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It's a product of our society these days. "It's your fault, never mine". Instant gratification. I said years ago, that some people don't see white lab coats and scrubs, they see dollar signs.

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Specializes in Orthopedics.

We have a family on my floor right now that is completely overbearing. They come up to the desk every 15 minutes, follow the nurse and/or nursing asst. into other patient's rooms, and are completely inconsiderate of the patient in the next bed. They want a private room that we can't offer and private care that we also can't offer. Although the patient is one of 8 in the district of heavy orthopedic patients, the family wants her treated as the only one. The family also writes everything down that we do and questions us whether or not we know what we are doing constantly. The patient has 2 broken legs but nothing wrong with her upper body. The family refuses to let her do anything on her own...eat, take a drink, blow her nose. The patient is lovely...the family....UGH! She's been with us for approx. 3 weeks and will be with us for the foreseeable future.

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Hi everyone,

I am not a nurse. I'm just an aide. I went to nursing school and had to drop out during my senior year when I lost 10 year job caring for a sick woman. My weekend work allowed me to provide for my kids (I've been divorced for 11 years). I started working at hospitals in the end of 2006. I work second shift, 3 nights per week - sometimes more.

For the most part I love my job, but every so often I get home completely drained physically and emotionally. The issue with families from hell is part to blame. Even thou I work night shift I too see some really bizarre things coming from families. Some nights I barely walk, I run! because families will ride the call light as if their relative is the only sick person in the entire hospital. A lot of times a family member stays in the room with the patient, then they call us to fetch things for them. We use a phone/pager system that allows us to answer the call from a room anywhere we are. I'll be right in the middle of cleaning up a patient, or helping someone whose back has been broken to the bathroom, or drawing blood for lab, and family members push the call light literally within seconds after I've told them "It will be a few minutes before I can get to you, but I'll be there". Then once I get in there they tell me they want a blanket because THEY are cold! (not the patient, THEM!). I do the best I can to keep my cool but sometimes I can't help it but curse at these people in my head. Sometimes I want to tell them that if they behaved like civilized people their experience (and ours) would be a lot better.

Most of the time my coworkers (nurses) are supportive of us the aides, but I have to say that many still add to insult to injury by taking sides with the patients when they gripe and bi*ch about everything. I am very lucky in that there are only 3 nurses in our team that do this.

I look up to my nurses as I know that their job isn't easy, as well as I know that going thru nursing school is not a piece of cake, but my respect is gone once a nurse starts to treat others in the team as sh**y as some patients do. I will never forget an abusive young man who yelled obscenities at us all night long. As soon as I answered the call he started by called me a lazy piece of ___. By 3 am I was in tears and some of the nurses tiptoed around him. This one RN, a woman who is 62 years old and has been a nurse for almost 40 years, calmly walked in his room and told him to stop the nonsense and respect the staff otherwise she would call security and request that the doctor send him to the Hawthorn unit (psych.). We didnt hear from the guy the rest of the night. "Marjie" is one of the nurses I will never forget for always supporting us the aides, and for not allowing patients/their families to stomp us to the ground.

I don't know if I will ever be able to go back to nursing school. Maybe when my girls graduate from high school and can help a little. I watch Marjie all the time because she is a role model to me.

OOps I digressed (sp?) .... sorry!

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Specializes in ICU,CCU,Med-Surg,Post Partum,Tele, ER.

I am a travel nurse who presently works ICU. I have been in nursing for over 20 yrs and boy do I have the horror stories to tell regarding rude families. Over the years, I have learned to be very polite and let them know that I am not the enemy. I am there to take care of their of loved one and I WILL NOT tolerate them disrespecting me. I also tell them to not mistake my kindness for weakness. I find that once you let them know you are not going to put up with their BS, they back down!!

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Specializes in Case Management, Home Health, UM.

We have our share of "families from hell" in home care, too. We currently have a client whose family expects us to do everything for him...yet won't lift a finger to help him, when we are not there. I warned my Manager when I admitted him several months ago that his daughter was a certifiable nut case and he was not appropriate for home care. As a result, he is being neglected and APS is "investigating" (yeah, right!). We just found out last week that this is not the first time this family has been reported for neglect...and his referral source failed to tell us that. :angryfire

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I agree that it is completely inappropriate and rude for people to badger, overly question, or talk down to their nurse. Why be mean to someone who takes care of you?? I also understand that there are bad nurses out there, but for the most part, those are few and far between. Whatever happened to the days when the nurses received respect? Patients and families did what they were asked by the nurse because they had respect for her, her knowledge, and her profession. Did those days ever really exist, or are the older nurses just pulling my leg?

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