What is your take on multiple family members in room when they have roommate?

[hollyberry678]

My patient had a roommate who had multiple family members in the room, on the other side of the curtain. And actually a group of them came in around 1 a.m. The families' loved one (pt) had gone through a procedure that evening, true, but not major surgery.

I asked that pt's nurse about it, and she said 'oh they will go around 2", that she didnt want to say anything because that can spark antagonism (or something to that effect), and that since they were from another culture we needed to be sensitive to that.

I said, well I am trying to be sensitive to my pt...She got an attitude to me after that.

Later she told me "it looks like they are both sleeping, the family members are being quiet" i said true, but they are still in and out (to the bathroom,ect). she said I was free to say something as I "worked in that space too"

I am all for family centered care, but where do you draw the line?

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

elthia...

Ohhhhhhh NO they can't do that. One complaint about the accommodations (pre-emergency) and it's WAY past time to go home.

This whole customer service crap is going to kill someone. Kudos to you for not committing a felony

[flashpoint]

It is so hard to know where to draw the line. Do we ignore the culture of the person in bed A because the person in bed B needs rest or ignore the culture of the person in bed B because the person in bed A needs a lot of family around? I am glad that I work in a tiny hospital...our rooms are technically semiprivate, but we rarely have enough patient to need to double up.

[dream'n, BSN, RN]

It is so hard to know where to draw the line. Do we ignore the culture of the person in bed A because the person in bed B needs rest or ignore the culture of the person in bed B because the person in bed A needs a lot of family around? I am glad that I work in a tiny hospital...our rooms are technically semiprivate, but we rarely have enough patient to need to double up.

When the culture of the patient in bed A infringes on the rights of bed B to rest, healing, and nursing access; that is where the line is drawn.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

it is so hard to know where to draw the line. do we ignore the culture of the person in bed a because the person in bed b needs rest or ignore the culture of the person in bed b because the person in bed a needs a lot of family around? i am glad that i work in a tiny hospital...our rooms are technically semiprivate, but we rarely have enough patient to need to double up.

here in the us, we ignore our own culture in order to accomodate everyone else's. else we may appear politically incorrect.

i will never forget being in the hospital barfing up a storm and with the worst headache i've ever had (csf leak) and being forced to co-exist with a roommate whose immigrant family insisted upon hanging out at the bedside all day screaming away in spanish. ("that's their culture -- everyone hangs out in the hospital when someone is ill, and they're not really screaming, they're just talking loud. that's their culture.") i was npo because even the thought of food had me heaving, and this family kept bringing in buckets of steaming, fragrant (or stinky, depending upon your pov) food for everyone to eat. ("we'll have to just accomodate them," the nurse said to me. "that's their culture.") even dh, who grew up in their culture was livid. we changed rooms.

next roommate was a woman with multiple children of school age, all visiting after school and well into the night when the bars closed and baby daddies would pick them up. so i had to listen to them screaming -- "they're just playing." -- and smell the food they brought. only this time, they're rolling on the floor, peering under the curtain to watch me get on and off the bedpan.

as an rn, but more importantly as a person who has been hospitalized and who has had multiple family members hospitalized, i vote for strict, strictly enforced visiting hours. no one needs more than two visitors at a time -- unless we're talking end of life conferences and death watch -- and no one needs more than one overnight visitor. and that overnight visitor needs to understand from the get-go that patient care comes first and their needs -- if they dare to express any -- come far, far down the list of nurse's priorities.

[MomRN0913]

Visiting hours are there for a reason. They need to be upheld unless of course there is a serious situation. A minor surgery should be a 10 min good night hug and kiss, see you in the morning type of thing.

When I had my daughter I was in a semi-private room. Visitors and dads had to leave by 11pm. I had my daughter around noon and it was a long long 2 days. I sent my exH home by 10pm (our DD was in the NICU) because he was awake forever and had to drive home 45min. Plus, I was in and out of sleep. When my exH left, I heard my roomates husband in bed with her talking. I drifted asleep. At midnight, the nurse came in to do some peri care on me. She thought no one was in the room, pulled the curtain halfway for some light without having to turn it on. Well, while providing me peri care, my roomies husband comes leaves the room, I am by the door, and he sees me in that position! I was ****** to say the least. Luckily she left the next day and i didn't have a roommate for the rest of the time.

Really, there should be set visiting hours, a set number of visitors at a time, and security making sure everyone is gone when visiting hours are over. When did this practice stop???

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

really, there should be set visiting hours, a set number of visitors at a time, and security making sure everyone is gone when visiting hours are over. when did this practice stop???

same time we started providing "customer service" rather than "patient care."

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

The nursing home where I work has either private rooms or rooms with 2 people. We have one resident whose family camps out in her room ALL DAY on the weekends and it's such a pain when we want to do anything with her roommate, because the family members are in the way and resent having to step out. They sit on the roommate's bed all the time instead of keeping to their own side, and they bring big decorations and put them all over. They are constantly encroaching on this other woman's space. The roommate is total care and since the lift equipment doesn't fit in the bathroom, we need to toilet her in the room, on a commode. Every single time, they complain about the smell, like poop isn't supposed to smell bad! This is why we have several sitting rooms throughout the facility- so that people and their visitors have a place to go, but this PITA family refuses to go to any of them because if they did, they would have no way of ringing the call bell every 5 minutes!

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

MY take does not mean a rat's patooty. There is a "customer service " policy in place... I will make EVERYONE in the room feel as if they are in the Ritz-Carleton!

[flashpoint]

here in the us, we ignore our own culture in order to accomodate everyone else's. else we may appear politically incorrect.

exactly! my mom was in the hospital and her roommate's daughter brought her young children and left for the day. apparently, grandma (the roommate) was the babysitter and no other accommodations could be made. my mom got to spend the day not only having children making noise and crawling all over the room, but she had to wait to use the bathroom, had kids spilling her water pitcher, and was stuck watching cartoons all day. when the roommate managed to fall asleep, the children expected my mom to take care of their needs and play with them. the nurses were too busy to take care of anyone that wasn't a patient.

when my mother complained, she was informed that it was a cultural thing. my mother informed the nurse that her culture expected peace and quiet in the hospital and that her culture also expected that people who are sick are not expected to care for children that are not their own. the nurse just smile and shrugged.

it is a no-win situation. no matter what, someone is going to be offended, someone is going to have their needs go unmet. i love hospitals with all private rooms!

[FlyingScot, RN]

Exactly! My mom was in the hospital and her roommate's daughter brought her young children and left for the day. Apparently, grandma (the roommate) was the babysitter and no other accommodations could be made. My mom got to spend the day not only having children making noise and crawling all over the room, but she had to wait to use the bathroom, had kids spilling her water pitcher, and was stuck watching cartoons all day. When the roommate managed to fall asleep, the children expected my mom to take care of their needs and play with them. The nurses were too busy to take care of anyone that wasn't a patient.

When my mother complained, she was informed that it was a cultural thing. My mother informed the nurse that her culture expected peace and quiet in the hospital and that her culture also expected that people who are sick are not expected to care for children that are not their own. The nurse just smile and shrugged.

It is a no-win situation. No matter what, someone is going to be offended, someone is going to have their needs go unmet. I love hospitals with all private rooms!

Your mom's nurse was an idiot. I sooo would have called children's protective services. Tjose kids were in an unsafe situation. Has common sense gone completely out the window?

[MomRN0913]

In the LTACH I managed we had an age policy. Yet somehow a visitor managed to make it upstairs with her infant and was breast feeding her child in the room that was a MRSA contact precaution. Disgusting. I kicked them out. Nicely, of course:)

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

Ugh 24/7 visiting here...... i can't stand when i have to go into rooms with 234324 visitors and none of them get out of my way so i can see/assess my patient. and they feel free to interupt CONSTANTLY. and run us around. once ,during a chaotic rapid response while i was attending to other patients and running for supplies for the rapid response team. one visitor came up to me in the hall, not even my pt (semi jk) , and asked me to get her some coffee, i said, " sorry i don t have time to do that right now." in hindsight her shocked look only seems funnier.