visitors hell

Nurses General Nursing

Published

just came home from working a 12 hour shift, usual busy day nothing too exciting but i am so sick of visitors! i think there should be a national ban on visitors until they learn to be nicer to the nurses. i would never consider going into someone else's workplace and telling them how to do their job. visitors all seem to think they have rn after their names and know more than we do. am i suffering from earlier burn-out or is this a common problem, no support from mangement to enforce visiting hours and usually the supervisor wil l side with the visitors. today i had 4 visitors who refused to leave the room while i put their relative on the bedpan, when i asked if they all go the bathroom together at home, they were not amused. any help appreciated

Friends and family are a great support to the patient, no doubt about that! Wouldn't want them to go away!

BUT some of them certainly stand in the way of us DOING OUR JOBS to take care of their loved ones! It's taken me in my position in the health care profession to make my family realize that THE NURSE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT SHE/HE IS DOING!!!!!!! Dang it! SHUT UP! Get out of the way and believe that the nurse really does care about this person and is an advocate! Don't try to run the show!! I've had to call my family members down on many occasions! It just is something that comes natural to "lay people".

:confused:

Specializes in Home Health.

Oh yes, God bless night shift!! Canna, I cannot believe they actually expected you to give up your thermos coffee. What I say in those situations is, "Yes, it is waful, we nurses did not want them to take away coffee for the visitors either, but they don't listen to us, but they do listen to patients and their families, and if enough people wrote a letter complaining about it...."

But then of course, it would become the nurses job to play coffee hostess, and we would have to drop everything to prepare the coffee, b/c we would have the keys to where the coffee was locked so epopele would not steal all the coffee and filters!

What I hate is the visitors in the ICU, who have a family member who may be in a coma or otherwise non-communicatiove, and so they "hang" at the door staring at the other pt's or just watching the nurses run around the unit. I feel like a fish in a fisgbowl. I hate suggested that if their family member "cannot appreciate a visit right now," they try coming back later, or sit quietly in a chair I will provide. I also inform them that if they choose to stay, they must not be in the dorrways, it is a firehazard (that's a lot of BS, but it sounds good!)

Frustrated, I love/hate your book idea. It is an excellent way to keep focused, PLUS if family mbrs right down what the docs say, everyone knows they can check the book, and so we wouldn't have 6 diff pepople asking the same questions, they can just go look in the book. It might also help when they see the consistencies the nurses give, and the inconsistencies and infrequency the doctors provide. Also may help show just how many times the nurse was in the room, so if we had jusy been in there and super busy, then one family mbr leaves and another comes in, they don't think that b/c we haven't been in for a while, that there has been no care ot atention provided. Though I must also admit, the book makes me a little nervous.

I also really hate it when a pt and/or family mbr insists on telling me they are a lawyer. Yeah, so what? You will have the same standard of nursing care everyone else gets. Are they trying to intimidate nurses when they say this. ON a sadder note, I saw an ad in an Advance magazine, placed by a lawyer, asking for a private duty nurse to care for a vented pt. I thought, this is sad, he will never have any replies. That ad ran for over 6 months!! Wonder if he did ever find anyone.

one time a man was visiting his dad and said "I just want you to know that I'm a lawyer". I said thats o.k. we'll take good of your dad anyway.

Specializes in Home Health.

lpn... LMAO, that was PERFECT!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

what a perfect answer....lol

you can bet ill use that one!

i hate that lawyer business too. now i know just what to say!

the thing about the book is this:

at least they will have a semi-factual account of the care (depending on their record keeping)

face it, if the patients family is unhappy with the care they are going to complain no matter what you do. if they dont have anything written down they will just make it up based on their confused perception of reality.

makes me nervous too but ive found so far, that its more helpful than harmful.

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Visitors......been there done that.......I HATED it when our "facility" (grrrrrrrrr- "facility" from the Latin-to make EASY- LOL )

eased visiting hours.

It's been awhile, but there was a 4 foot tall brick WALL between the main lobby and the elevators. If staff were coming from the cafeteria, they had to SHOW their picture ID before they could go through the half door and back to work.

A uniformed guard was there to assure no one got in......that is except visitors......THEY could go through the OTHER half door in the wall.....no guard just easy (facility) access.

On the other hand, my Mother in law is now in LTC in a fairly nice place about 20 mi from her home. My bro in law is 66 years old, and was her primary caregiver for several years. He is disabled now, but still goes to the LTC every day at lunch time and helps feed his mom.

Last week he had to go to the VA for medical and didn't get to the LTC until suppertime. The dietary staff told him they didn't feed mom lunch that day....because they thought he "might want to do it!" This wasn't the nurses, nor the CNA but they were there. Pretty sad.

Sometime WE can take advantage of the visitor instead of vice versa.

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