Poor care post surgery

[bradleau]

I am post surgery now for 6 wks. I still can not get out of my mind the poor treatment and pain control that I received post surgery. I had a plate put in at the C 5-6-7 as part of the removal of bone spurs from a surgery 8 yrs prior. One bone spur was anterior and was adhesed to my esophagus. The PAIN was intense! It took 2 hrs and 30 min from arrival to room to get my pain medication. My husband was there, and kept requesting for me. So by the time I got the IM Morphine I was very uncomfortable. Policy was to tell the patient how much they could have, and what and how frequent. This I was never told until the night nurse came on. I was needing pain relief and my scheduled meds...that were several hours late. This nurse, who lectured me that I SHOULD HAVE ASKED FOR IT SOONER, told me I could have 10 mg every 3 hrs. OK, I then asked her why it had been 4 hrs since I had repeated asked for pain medication, and my scheduled meds. Their bid is Q 12 hrs. Where I work it is 9 am and 5 pm. Certainly NOT q 12. Anyway, the adhesion removal was extremely painful. I DID NOT EXPECT TO HAVE THIS TYPE OF PAIN. I ALSO DID NOT EXPECT A LECTURE IN A SNIDE TONE OF VOICE FROM A FELLOW RN. Every nurse that came into the room was informed that my pain level was at least a 7 out of 10, and that I was not getting relief. I asked for the doctor to be called. MY SURGEON.

Of course by the time the night nurse came to my room at 22:10 some other NP was taking call for a different MD in the practice. The excuse from my nurse regarding my home med delay was that it had not been stocked in their Accu dose. This hospital has 24/7 pharmacy and it had been over 12 hrs since I had been on the floor post op. NO EXCUSE!

Perhaps the worst part was my nurse said she was the charge nurse, and that the hospital did not have a supervisor ( whom I had requested). That was a LIE! There always is a supervisor especially for a large hospital like that.

My pain level never did drop below a 7. I was having irritability from the delay of my home medications....

I NEVER HAVE TREATED ANY OF MY PATIENTS POST OP LIKE I WAS TREATED (ABUSED).

I reported this to my doctor's ACNP who made rounds and discharged me the next morning. I also called administration the following day requesting to file a complaint. Around 4 pm that day, the floor supervisor phoned me. She said that there was a supervisor, but that the charge nurse thought I was satisfied with her answeres as "a charge nurse". H--L no! SHE WAS THE PROBLEM. THAT IS WHY I WANTED THE SUPERVISOR.

I know how some nurses feel that some patients are drug seekers. That is the way I felt she was treating me. ( note: She told me that it had been 5 hrs since my last shot and why did I not ask sooner) Well I had, like every 30 min. EXCEPT SHE DID NOT COME TO MY ROOM until many hours after her shift had started.

I know what nurses go through as I have been one for over 30 yrs. I try to not have complaints, etc. BUT TO BE LIED TO AND TREATED IN THAT MANNER was the worst.

I will be getting back to that nurse manager with a registered letter for a follow up. Thanks for listening.:angryfire

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

wow... that sucks... sounds like a bad situation...

but.. no offense..

sounds to me like if you are a nurse.. you should know how to use the call light..

ask for prn pain meds.. don't expect them to just give em to you..

and IM morphine?... if you were post op... you should have still had a line .. and got IV meds..... i don't know.. i wasn't there...

all i can say is....

sorry you had a bad experince...

hope your better...

take care...

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

Sorry you had poor care. Yes your pain issues should have been addressed a lot earlier and gotten under control. All i can say is i hope there isnt a next time. but if there is, remember your room phone can always act as a intercept. Call the hospital operator and ask her to page the supervisor to your room. You can always ask to have the doctor paged to call your room too although i dont know if they would or not. Just remember there is always another route if you arent getting the care you need in a hospital.

[bradleau]

I did use my call light. I did ask for pain medication frequently. I did not have a direct line to my doctor ...just the answering service. Perhaps I should have dialed the operator. But that would get me the outside line. The phones are direct...I got no where using the "0" ...and dialing a 9 just got me an outside line. NEVER AGAIN! Oh I also left there with the start of an infection when they pulled the drain. I still have to express fluid from that site weekly, but no longer pus. I took a week of Levaquin by mouth for that.

[cmo421]

It is so hard to be a nurse and know the right way things should be done, and not have them done. Sorry for your experience. I would write to the hospital and express your concerns and relate what you experienced. Also, IM injections are really outdated, unless in an emergency,or suggested by the pharmacy. Maybe speaking to the MD on your follow-up would be wise also. Good luck and have a good recovery.

[bradleau]

I was surprised that the medication was not IV as I had one running until discharge the next day. I was prescribed RX morphine IR for home, but really did not need but just a few those first 5 days at home. One of my co workers said I should have phoned her that night. SHe works at this hospital as well as where I work. SHe indicated that there is a lot of pharmacy problems. She was working the night that I had surgery and knew who to contact. I plan to keep that in mind if I have further surgerys.

[oramar]

I have taken care of a great many persons who have had surgery like you describe. There was always a lot of attention paid to pain control. Sorry about your suffering.

[Nrs_angie, BSN, RN]

im just confused... there's alot of mention about the night nurse... I am assuming she didn't start her shift until 2300... so where was the evening nurse that received you immediately post-operatively following PACU... shouldn't the evening nurse been giving you meds during her shift?? ... if you did ask for pain meds and your husband asked for pain meds... What was the nurses response??? Did they just ignore the requests... or did they give a reason for not giving them... I wasn't there, so I can only speak from my experience... When I was on evening shift, I had gotten alot of post-op patients... first I would check to see what meds they got in the OR & PACU to see if enough time had passed btw pain meds and if it was appropriate to give another dose at the time they requested... if it was too soon, I would explain that and tell them what time exactly they could have another dose? Did that NOT happen?? Im very confused why the previous nurse said nothing/did nothing... and why the night nurse had to come talk to you?? Is there something I am missing here? I also agree that IM morphine is outdated... It should have been IV morphine since you already had a patent line with fluids running all through that time... that's so weird they were giving IM. Not to make light of things... but it's too bad you weren't nauseated and vomitting everywhere... If you were vomitting all over the place, I'd bet they would run to get some Zophran so they wouldn't have a mess to clean up. hehe. Again, im not making a joke of your pain... just saying that it seems people work faster when it comes down to having a mess to clean up.

Anyway... Im sorry that you suffered in pain so long... Hope you are doing better now.

Happy Holidays,

Angie

[cheshirecat]

I am surprised you did not have a PCA running so that you could control your own pain relief.

Hope you get better soon.

[bradleau]

Shifts are 12 hrs. SO the nurse had plenty of time. I work that same shift. Short of going AMA or threatening to do so...I do not know what could have been done. My husband went to the desk to ask, as well. I was still getting frequent post op vital signs once to my room. My blood pressure was fine, resp. 20 +. The only thing I was told was that the orders had to get into the system. Orders are faxed, then everything is electronic with armband barcoded, laptop type computer to bring up your med list, etc. 30 min is the time that is set. I work for this group of hospitals. We are all a bit different, but not THAT different. Nurses at my hospital would have been written up and more for the lack of care that I received. So why did the other nurse not give me the RX , it may have been too soon. Every one was thanked from housekeeping , CNT, etc. I did refuse to get up and walk in the hall when this young man came in "to walk me".

I had been up to the bathroom, and walking around in my room alot. I did tell him to come back later after I had some pain relief, and to BRING ANOTHER GOWN to cover my backside.

I was one cranky patient by the time he came back, as I was being lectured by the 7pm to 7 am nurse at that time. I would not wish this nurses care on anyone, including her and her family. But then maybe if SHE got this kind of care, she might learn something.

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

Well if you had tried calling the hospital operator and you worked there, you should be privey to the overhead page number which in most cases can be called from any bedside phone for emergencies. So why not overhead page the supervisor,, or call her pager from the bedside phone? If i had that treatment in my faciility i sure would have used my resources.

[bradleau]

Please read what was written. I work in a sister hospital. All owned by the same such as Kaiser,HCA,etc. I did not work in the hospital that I had surgery in. I DID NOT HAVE PRIVY to any numbers or pagers. My surgeon could not be paged as it was night and he does not do surgery at night. IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME, I WILL ATTEMPT TO HAVE ACCESS TO HIS PRIVATE NUMBER. I guess I did not anticipate a problem like this. I will be following thru on it with that hospital. This was my third treatment there, and the ONLY one that was not up to standard.