The Patient Who Receives No Visits

TheCommuter, BSN, RN

I'm certain that every nurse who has ever worked at the bedside has provided care for the patient who never seems to receive any visitors.

In fact, the roles were reversed nearly five years ago when I was the patient laying in a bed on a women's medical/surgical unit at a community hospital in a large city. Even though my inpatient hospital stay was a swift overnight affair, I received no visitors. The facility was located almost forty miles from my home, so a friend dropped me off on the morning of my planned admission before she reported to work, and another friend picked me up at the time of my discharge after her workday had ended. In addition, I had no family members in the area. The vast majority of my relatives lived more than 1,400 miles away from me.

In spite of this, my overnight hospital stay was so short that I did not feel lonely. On top of it all, I was so sedated from the narcotic pain medications that infused into me every time I pressed the button on the patient-controlled analgesia pump.

Anyhow, some of us naturally wonder about the patient who receives no visitors. Many of these patients have adult children, siblings, and other people in their lives who reside in the same metro area based on the information provided on the face sheet. However, none of these individuals ever drop in or call to see how the patient is doing over the course of a lengthy stay at the facility. And when nursing staff or physicians desperately need to contact the next of kin, none of the people listed on the face sheet seem to answer their phones.

Some people jump to conclusions and will exclaim, "How terrible! I would never leave a person alone in this world. Family is everything!" It is true that some self-centered adult children are willingly estranged from a parent who provided nothing but love, warmth, support, and happy memories during their upbringings. These situations are truly heartbreaking.

In addition, other patients are modern-day recluses who actually prefer social isolation over interaction any day of the week. These people would rather have no one in their lives.

However, we do not know the whole story. Nurses have witnessed family dynamics that are edgy or downright dysfunctional. Rather than remain in a situation that produces so much unhappiness and discord, some relatives cut themselves off from the person altogether as a way of emotional self-preservation. Dysfunctional family units are more common than many people realize.

Some would say, "I would hope people show a little more respect for their sick family member than that!" But for many adult children, it is hard to be around the seemingly pleasant male patient who sexually abused them throughout their childhood and adolescence. It is almost impossible for adult grandchildren to visit the sweet elderly female patient who disciplined them as children by burning them with lit cigarettes and beating them with horsewhips. The smiling patient in the hospital bed is the same woman who, many years ago, disowned her sister for marrying someone of another race and rejected her brother for revealing he is gay.

To come to the point, I try to refrain from criticizing the relatives who never visit, and I also try to avoid condemning patients, no matter how difficult or demanding they might be. I am cognizant that I might open emotional wounds if the wrong words come out of my mouth. Dysfunctional families are a familiar part of our societal landscape. If an insensitive nurse lectures about the importance of family, the chances are high that some people within an earshot have dealt with incest, beatings, addicted relatives, emotional abuse, and other unpleasant circumstances within their family units. For them, breaking free took courage.

The Patient Who Receives No Visits

About TheCommuter, BSN, RN

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