Uncooperative visitors (rant)

[mattsmom81]

Gotta vent, guys..... I've shared my frustration with our 'open visiting' policy and our management team's lack of support if family complains for ANY reason. Our jobs are so complex plus we have dysfunctional family in our faces in critical care...it is overwhelming some nights like last night...

Acute MI via ER....sick, vomiting (inferior posterior wall) junctional escape rhythm and low cardiac output symptoms. I am trying to get the doctors in to get him to cath lab for tx, pacer, IABP. I have 8 feuding family members all demanding my attention, in procession in and out of the room despite my instructions. Several cry, keep him stimulated despite my repeated instructions, and wring their hands over Daddy who now is sure he is dying. I finally round them up and say one last time"I need your help so I can help him. Limit stimulation. Let me do my job. Please sit quietly. I will update you further when I have him stable and make arrangements for him to get what he needs." Fuming at me, one daughter snaps. "We're only asking questions" and promptly reports me to the supervisor. They continue to pester me and my patient so I insist they leave. I get a 15 minute reprieve, then see later they have snuck back into the room, totally ignoring me again.. Finally I get the sleepy cardiologist and CCL crew in and get the patient to cath lab for needed tx but at the end of my shift, my exhaustion is due to this FAMILY...which is SOOOO wrong...my PATIENT should be my priority , NOT the screwed up, no common sense family who actively interfere to meet THEIR needs!!!!

The problems with this family continue from shift to shift. They fire the next 2 shifts of nurses then demand the patient be transfered to a hospital 'with competent nurses' (GRRRR) The doctor refuses, too unstable....by this time we'd have been thrilled to see them go believe me.

Of course the management team is picking apart the nurses' behavior....we have failed to make this family happy, even though we are saving their loved one's life, that is not the priority. The 'customer service' scores have suffered.

What has happened to my profession? What has happened to common sense of people who refuse to HEAR and cooperate when their loved one is in crisis??

Thanks for listening...all done now. o

[mattsmom81]

Originally posted by meownsmile

Do you have pastoral care to draw support from? When we have situations like this we have a great team of hospital chaplins that come in and sit with the family and act as a go-between for family and staff/patient. It works great, we call the chaplin, give him a rundown of whats up over the phone and he comes in and will sit with family, counsel, etc until things settle down. They truely are a great asset to our hospital for this very thing, and are great at smoothing ruffled feathers.

This is how things should work for sure! Our pastoral support is the patient advocate and he is there minimally for patients/family in daytime hours. Not interested in the staff except to chastise us for not being'caring enough'. He invariably takes part in blaming nurses if we bother to involve him with a troubled/complaining family. This is such a dysfunctional place...no wonder we have so many travelers....people just get fed up with the lack of support and move on.

[mattsmom81]

Originally posted by Rapheal

You have my sympathies. You did a good job for your patient. God help him when he is d/c'd if these people are going to help him recover. Scary. Maybe they can fire each other then.

Thank you for your kind post. Part of me feels like I failed but I realize I'm getting sucked into the managements' expectation to 'make everybody happy all the time'. It just doesn't work that way does it!