Being directed to get a patients son a ride home

[unappreciatedrn]

Hello

I work on a 39 med/surg unit in the inter-city. I recently had a 26 year old patient who needed an I/D of her hand. Her 13 year old son was at her bedside and had been since the previous night when she was admitted. During my clinical coordinator making rounds, she came out of my patients room and told me that I had to find this patients child a ride home. I responded that I had asked the patient if someone could come pick him up and she said no. Due to budget cuts our hospital has stopped giving cab vouchers so what was I to to? The clinical coordinator continued to tell me that it was my job to find the patients child a ride home I had explained to her that I just did not have a way of doing that and she said we are trying to make our hospital more family oriented and we need to raise our scores so I needed to figure something out.

What was I to do in this situation?

[ANnot4me]

I have shared this story before on AN. I was once working in the ED and was assigned seven private rooms. All but one was full and into my seventh room, the charge nurse placed two patients who were partners involved in a domestic. They were intoxicated, yelling and screaming and there was no security present. I refused to enter the room as I felt is was unsafe and I told the Charge Nurse she had made a mistake in placing them both in the same room (they refused to be separated) and in expecting me to care for them. I was publicly berated and another nurse decided to be a martyr and win some points with the Charge Nurse and accepted the assignment. She was kicked in the face, the resident was knocked to the floor and then security had to come and separate the couple. I was criticised for being unprofessional and for not being a team player. The injuries of the intoxicated couple were minimal compared to what the staff suffered.

[wanderlust99]

Social work. A kid shouldn't be spending the night in the hospital!!