Patient fx hip after family refused alarm - page 9

^ yep, as we get to enjoy their right to sue us

Well geeze! In our facility they have removed all bed and chair alarms. We are not allowed to have them! How do you like that? They said there are complaints (not sure from who, state maybe?) that they are being used as "babysitters" to negate our responsibility to keep them from falling!

Yes then on top of that they decided to cut our staffing even further so we cannot have a staff member watching all our fall risks in an activity room while we scramble to do even more work from the staff cuts they said we no longer needed. It has definitely been a nightmare for us. These people are demanding to be put in bed but we can't put them there because they then try to get up by themselves and wind up on the floor. Our halls are lined up with all the "fall risk patients" 24-7.

We are flirting with disaster. Pressure sores on all these people are going to be piling up around us. Pretty hard to change their positions at least every two hours when they are stuck in chairs all the time. Of course any legitimate concern that could in any way cost this multi billion dollar corp money is just ignored and brushed under the carpet.


My facility made us believe the removal of the alarms was a universal thing that some government entity was forcing on us. EVERYONE had to remove them. I should have known better! It must REALLY be the cost of the alarms and replacement of batteries etc why we can't have them anymore.

I am figuring that the patient was confused and unable to make own choices. Family refused - alarm is a treatment. But is interupting with patient safety. You CAN put the alarm on even though the family refuses. Who is responsible, the hospital and the nurse. There is no reprecussions on the family. Any time the family is obstructing patient safety, I am sorry but I ask them to leave if they continue putting the patient in harms way. Its your as* and the patients health on the line.

[QUOTE=tyvin;6974244]Why did the patient have a POA if they were so rightfully A&0x3?.QUOTE]


Because you need to get a POA when you're still A&Ox3 because once the great decline begins, you're aren't considered competent enough to give the consent
required to set one up. There are different kinds of POAs, including various medical POAs.

Short OT here... There is also something called an AIF or Attorney In Fact which is largely archaic today, but can be very useful under certain circumstances. My husband and cousin have joint medical POA for me and my husband has an AIF for me. It allows him to sign documents for me by signing: my name/his name/AIF.
Penmanship is nearly impossible for me now. I can sometimes manage a single signature, but no more. The AIF does not give him the same broad legal rights he would have with even a limited POA. Not because I don't trust him implicitly, because I do, but rather because I can still make financial decisions for myself.

What able bodied persons need to remember is that those of us who are impaired physically (and occasionally cognitively) are still pretty much who we always were
before and need to be treated as such. If I become mentally incapable of understanding the inherent risk to being unalarmed (I just made that a word!)
then, new rules go ino effect.