Medical patients on post-partum floor?

webbiedebbie · Mar 24, 2004

As far as hospital administration is concerned....A nurse is a nurse is a nurse. PP is now considered an overflow floor and YES, it is happening today! I have taken care of pt's with NG tubes, pneumonia, possible brain mass, torn ligaments, etc. We even had a MALE pt on the floor for platelet transfusion!

dramaluvr · Mar 24, 2004

I have a question, are there any other hospitals that are sending medical patients up to post partum? We have brand new baby's down the same hall as an MRSA pt and we've had cocaine addicted pt's high on crack at the time down our peds hall. My nurse manager has told us that this is the way of the future, there aren't going to be specialized areas any more, if we have room, we're going to get whatever they send us. One of the newer nurses to the floor asked the NM if she could have a little more extensive orientation if she was to get med/surg pts and the NM told her that her RN degree covers all areas of nursing:angryfire so she should be able to handle ALL areas of nursing. YOU KNOW, JUST LIKE THE MD'S DON'T SPECIALIZE..........

I am not a nurse yet, just a student. However, my daughter was just recently hospitalized and she is 14 months old. We were on the same floor as L&D, NICU and the Medical Floor. They combined everything into one. Only one of the nurses which took care of my daughter had ever done pediatrics before and my baby was miserable because they couldn't get the IV and after only two hours it infiltrated and they had to do another. I was pretty upset and will never go to this hospital again. I would rather travel the hour and a half to the next closest hospital than go back there. I thought it very inappropriate to have women delivering babies next to a room with elderly patients with pneumonia, including my daughter being there for pneumonia.

tiliimnrn · Mar 31, 2004

Dramaluvr, Did you complain to the Nurse Manager on that floor about your ordeal? I believe that if you don't compain about the care, the fact that your nurse probably didn't have any orientation to peds, I don't think anything will be done to take care of the problem. I tell any patient that complains about something to tell them when they do their, "after care" calls. Tell them the room was too cold, my nurse was soooooo busy that she couldn't come in my room right away when I needed my pain med, etc.... That's the only way anything will get done. I also tell them to complain about the male pt on the floor.

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 31, 2004

Dramaluvr, Did you complain to the Nurse Manager on that floor about your ordeal? I believe that if you don't compain about the care, the fact that your nurse probably didn't have any orientation to peds, I don't think anything will be done to take care of the problem. I tell any patient that complains about something to tell them when they do their, "after care" calls. Tell them the room was too cold, my nurse was soooooo busy that she couldn't come in my room right away when I needed my pain med, etc.... That's the only way anything will get done. I also tell them to complain about the male pt on the floor.

amen! Please, complain to management and administration....it's so true that the only way it will change is if the PATIENTS (e.g. bread and butter) say something about it! They don't give a flip what nurses have to say, esp. on a bulletin board. BUT let a PATIENT complain, and watch how excited they get. ESPECIALLY IF YOU BEND THE RIGHT EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! START at the top and bend em all!

dramaluvr · Mar 31, 2004

I am not a nurse yet, just a student. However, my daughter was just recently hospitalized and she is 14 months old. We were on the same floor as L&D, NICU and the Medical Floor. They combined everything into one. Only one of the nurses which took care of my daughter had ever done pediatrics before and my baby was miserable because they couldn't get the IV and after only two hours it infiltrated and they had to do another. I was pretty upset and will never go to this hospital again. I would rather travel the hour and a half to the next closest hospital than go back there. I thought it very inappropriate to have women delivering babies next to a room with elderly patients with pneumonia, including my daughter being there for pneumonia.

I did complain to one of the nurses and she said she had complained to the hospital, but nothing had been done. She said she likely wouldn't be staying at that hospital for much longer. Supposedly Pediatrics had their own Floor, but then they started combining floors. Yeh, I complained pretty hard, including to my doctor who let us take my baby home after two days because the treatment was so poor. She let us do everything from home and we did outpatient treatment, except the IV and she said as long as we got 28 oz of fluids in her we could keep her home. So, I did everything I could to keep fluids in her so I didn't have to go back. The doctor even said she herself was treated poorly by the hospital because she was a fairly recent residency graduate and looking for a permanent place and she is checking out the different areas. She is here for a little bit seeing if this is where she wants to be. She said they treat her different because she doesn't have ideals back from the 60s or 70s and believes in procedures such as suctioning an infant's mucous when they can't breathe, which this hospital does not do. At my daughter's last outpatient visit I asked her if she had decided to stay. She told me they had tried hard to keep her, but she was going to UCLA where things were up to date. I don't blame her.

Fivestar22 · Apr 21, 2004

i worked in ob/gyn icu, special care nursery, and nbn for four years, and there is no way we would never take a pt from a m/s unit. these pts are considered dirty, even a gyn pt that was operated on in the non ob/gyn or was considered dirty and we would not except them. we also would not except a mom or surgery from another hospital. there is too much risk envolved. your nm should know that this is wrong as well. infants and premature infants are much to weak, to risk being exposed to c-diff, or mrsa. also, it wouldn't be any better for a new mom to be exposed, since they could easily pass it to their child. you should check the policy's on this. most are very strict, especially b/c most ob units don't even want people or visitors in them that don't have a baby in the nursery. by having m/s pts this increases the chance of a possible obductions and moms may not want to deliver at your hospital, b/c of the chance that they or their nb may be exposed to something deadly.:angryfire

if you wanted to be a m/s nurse then you would have went to work there, just b/c you have a degree to work as a rn doesn't mean you have the specialized training it takes to care for todays very sick m/s or ob pts. these pts have multiple things going on with them and they should have the care that they deserve. a rn in a m/s unit, would feel just as lost in an ob unit, as a ob nurse would in a m/s unit. i am sure a m/s nurse would not be very happy if they had to take care of an ob pt. that is the reason why nurses specialize in a certain area, so they don't have to care for pts they don't want to treat.

i have a question, are there any other hospitals that are sending medical patients up to post partum? we have brand new baby's down the same hall as an mrsa pt and we've had cocaine addicted pt's high on crack at the time down our peds hall. my nurse manager has told us that this is the way of the future, there aren't going to be specialized areas any more, if we have room, we're going to get whatever they send us. one of the newer nurses to the floor asked the nm if she could have a little more extensive orientation if she was to get med/surg pts and the nm told her that her rn degree covers all areas of nursing:angryfire so she should be able to handle all areas of nursing. you know, just like the md's don't specialize..........

orrnlori, RN · Apr 21, 2004

OK, the RN credential may cover us to take care of all patients, but could the same not be said for the MD? Last time I checked, docs did not specialize until their residency, which begins a year AFTER they finish med school and plop that MD behind their names.
I can see it now:
Yes, Dr. Y, we realize that you are a dermatologist, but Dr. Z is tied up performing his scheduled cases, so we need you to zip down to the OR and perform an emergency open heart on this patient that is crashing in the cath lab. We seem to be seeing a bit more of that since we started having podiatrists perform PTCA's, but I digress. You are an MD, you can handle it! Oh and by the way, we didn't have an OR team available, so we pulled some nurses down from the med/surg floors -- they can scrub in and assist, after all, they are RN's.

This is funny, I could see it unfolding in my mind as I read it. I think it's ridiculous to think that all nurses can do all nursing. I wouldn't expect a meg/surg nurse to come into my OR and do my job, and I wouldn't expect an ICU nurse to welcome me with open arms either. All our areas are pretty specialized and getting more specialized all the time.