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Hi everyone, I'm a first year nurse and I have a question about Dilaudid administration. Is it necessary to hold Dilaudid pain medication for an 84 year old patient with low blood pressure? Another nurse on my unit refused to give her patient Dilaudid 0.5mg IVP ordered q3h because his blood pressure was 90/60, it had been hovering around this for the past two days or so. He was an average sized man (not a frail elderly man but not large or obese), very distended abdomen that was firm due to fluid build up, it was a monitored step down unit where he was on tele (history of controlled a fib), we could closely monitor his blood pressure and respirations which were about 30-35 because he was having difficulty breathing due to bilateral pleural effusions, fluid buildup in his lungs, was about a week post chest tube removal, and was suffering from a lot of cancer pain- he was screaming out in pain all night. She adamantly refused to give him any pain medication and I felt it was extremely inappropriate to not give him pain medication- he had not had any pain medication in 6 hours and his respiratory rate was not depressed. I sat in his room with him for a most of the night holding his hand while she sat at the nurses station texting. Because I did not know whether it was appropriate to give him the Dilaudid, I eventually gave him a prn order of Tylenol 650mg PO after she went on her break while I was covering for her. She had told the doctor that she held the Dilaudid because his blood pressure was too low, but never actually told the doctor what the pressure was. I didn't think that a blood pressure of 90/60 would be too low to give someone who was not having any respiratory depression. Would it have been contraindicated for me to have given him the Dilaudid 0.5mg IVP order with a BP of 90/60? This situation happened a few weeks ago but I haven't been able to shake it and it has been bothering me for a long time- to be honest I think she was just being lazy and didn't want to get the medication. Please tell me how to best a situation like this should it ever happen again. Thanks! - frustrated first year nurse