Are YOU terrified to be a patient (and your loved ones, too!)

[nervousnurse]

Believe me, I HATE to be so negative, but lately, the ERRORS and LAZINESS I see where I work just make me TERRIFIED to

be a patient, and of course, for my loved ones, too! The other night, I was sooo upset over sooo many errors I saw at work, I

told my husband "if you're hospitalized for a broken FINGERNAIL, I would still be there with you, 24-7!!!"

I am just overwhelmed!!!!! Also, noticed one particular secretary of ours ALWAYS forgets to write the allergies on all the

doctors' order sheets. Yes, of course the doctor and pharmacist should always CHECK, but they STILL need to be on

EVERY order sheet, and written in RED! When I had surgery years ago, I had to tell them to write PENICILLIN all over

my chart.....it was not noted ANYWHERE on my chart (nor did I have the bracelet!!!!)......scary, scary stuff!

Oh, and that reminds me, even our wonderful pharmacists seem to be making more mistakes lately. It is just terrifying.

BUT, just so ya know I'm not completely anxious or overwhelmed, I also have strong FAITH.....so, I keep telling myself,

if my loved one or myself has something go wrong due to someone's gross negligence or just pure LAZINESS (UGH!!),

I'll just pray that God will give me/ us peace about it, and He'll decide what's going to happen......

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

I learned my lesson with my mom....she was at a community hospital, severe headache, worst of her life, and they wouldn't do a CT on her because the radiologist and tech had to be called in. I was a new nurse at the time, but even then I knew this was wrong. By time I got a transfer order and the heli from my hospital on the way she had a huge subarcnoid bleed, (gee...do you really think now her vomiting was from the demerol and her sky high BP was from pain) and since they waited to send her out, she was unable to be coiled. She died 2 days later. And yes, I did have a wrongful death suit against that hospital. Believe me, if the level 1 trauma center I worked at had been closer I would have jammed her in the back seat of my car and taken her there Here, the ER doc wanted to send her to another community hospital he was affliated with...how about NO.

Moral of the story....stay with your loved ones as much as you can, and be a big mouth if need be.

[belgarion]

Last year alone I made 8 complaints regarding my wife's care at the hospital she was in on 7 occasions. These were not about cold coffee, waiting too long for a blanket, or anything customer service related. Every one of my complaints was related to something that could have been life threatening. Unfortunately this is the only hospital in the area with in-patient dialysis so we don't have much choice when she has to be admitted.

Speaking of dialysis, I recently stopped a tech at the dialysis center my wife goes to from drawing up a saline flush from a bag. She was placing the previously sterile needle against the side of her index finger to guide it into what was, up to that point, sterile fluid. The worst part of this was that the charge nurse told me I needed to leave if all I was going to do was stir up imaginary problems. I have a meeting with the facility clinical manager this week.

Yeah, I'm worried anytime my family or myself are at the mercy of a medical facility.

[swift125]

I totally agree. I was recently an inpatient at the hospital where I work and it scared me. I had to remind staff that the red allergy bracelets actually mean something.

[RN1980]

i have now worry at all if im admitted to my hospital. i co worker wife developed a PE that required emergent intubated and a few days on the vent in our icu. our icu was full and had many "real" critical pts. ussually we take 2-3 pts a piece in our unit. however, many of us started comming in on our off days to be her primary nurse for 8-12hrs. i myself pulled 4 8hr and 2 12hr shifts to be her only nurse. im talkin sitting right htere at bedside the whole shift, not having to worry about anything going on in the unit except her condition. of course our hospital cfo found out about this and raised hell cause of the added overtime, so we just came in without clocking in. her stay in the unit was full of ups and downs, runs of a-fib and psvt that required antarrythmic drugs and cardioversion, dopamine and levophed gtts, malfucntining alines and pa lines. but she was extubated and left our unit in a w/chair on r/a 9 days later and i along with many of the unit staff and doc's saw her walk out of the hospital a full 12 days later. there is no doubt her recovery was because a critical care trained rn was dedicated to her bedside and not hampered with other issues not relevant to her condition. so many "would've" and "could've" problems were caught and adverted cuase of our bedside vigils. do we do this volunteer bedside vigils on all our pts? nope, but we did it for a fellow unit nurses wife. is it a double standard, prolly so..ethical? i dont care.. again, would i feel comfortable being "low sick" in my unit..wouldnt give it a 2nd thought. btw..our ceo re-couped our volunteer time later so everyone who sat got paid, but it took the critical care doc's and the pt herself to raise cain.

[steelydanfan]

You bet I will be there if my loved one has to be hospitalized, if only so I know he gets a daily bath.

Pt's forget everything the doctor said 2 seconds after they walk out, so I will be there to remember.

I can take care of myself as a pt, but my loved ones can't.

[rachelgeorgina]

I'm on clinicals in the ICU at the moment and would never, ever want to be a patient after seeing how patients, in particular our sedated and vented and brain injured/lowered GCS/non responsive patients are treated. It's almost like our patients are people in the bed and just work... I don't know.

I was the relative from hell when my grandma was unwell and later dying in hospital. I was the relative who the nursing staff complained about at handover. & I didn't care. If it meant my gran got a bed pan when she needed one, her pad changed when it was dirty and had her non-invasive ventilation hooked up appropriately (not mask on her face with no oxygen or air going through or mask not connected to the tubing or something equally as awful that happened more than once, seeing her sats drop down into the 40s with no nurse rushing to the alarms) then I stayed and did whatever I could to keep her safe and comfortable. I know I was a nurse's nightmare but I was my grandma's god sent.

[KJStarling]

I have a job where I have the pleasure of observing all the hospitals in our system... From my observations I have told everyone: "if I need to go to the hospital please take me to XXXXXXXX." This hospital is the smallest, poorest, least fancy place around... No Magnet status, no marble floors, no menus to special order from... But guess what those people can THINK on their feet! They aren't worried about appearances or placating administrators, they are focused on safe patient care.

BTW I never let my friends or loved ones go to the hospital alone... We have lots of clinicians in our circle and we joke that it's the great white fleet... Not confrontational, just very aware of what is being done, and by whom, and why.

PS I do remind everyone to wash their hands every time they enter my peeps room!