S - Acute in patient psych in patient unit in a regular hospital. There are 4 units. Axis 1 unit, Axis 2 unit, geri psych and dementia unit, all separated. We also take psych with some medical issues.
B - Patients wear street clothing. We launder them. There is always issues with inappropriate clothing, or clothing with bugs, or dirty clothing. Also, patients clothing has been ruined in the washer (there is a washer on the unit and the techs wash the clothing). The biggest issue is, there have been patients that have cut on the unit with various things they find (like taking apart call bells). One girl was cutting for a week and no one knew because she had on long sleeves and long pants. Not the first time this has happened.
A - Our hospital is into patient centered care. Safety of the patients to me should come first. I understand dignity and all of that, but we are not long term care. Most of our patients stay 3-5 days, maybe 2 weeks.
R - We took a suggestion to practice council that patients should wear stringless patient gowns and patient pants that we have. Many did not like the idea (they have been there long and don't like change). I am wondering what other psych units like ours do.
Thanks for your help! sister zyprexa (name lovingly given to me by one of my top 10 loved patients!)
@Medic_Murse We have the exact same protocols at our ER for any and all inpatient psych admissions. At our hospital we have a dedicated ward a few floors up. All inpatient psych admissions first come through ER to be assessed and evaluated. If they are deemed to be admitted the patient has to strip down completely naked and after a quick skin check we provide them with a hospital scrub shirt and scrub pants. Then we take them up a few floors to the dedicated psych ward barefoot only too.
Absolutely NO underwear, NO shoes, NO socks, NO bras. All patients in psych wear just scrubs with nothing underneath them and all have to go barefoot for duration.
Some people may say it's "unhuman' but it's all to ensure complete and total safety for our staff as well as to ensure safety amongst everyone in the ward.
By us now keeping any and all psych ward admissions in bare feet for duration it completely eliminated any potential incidents involving shoes used as weapons. It also eliminated any slips. Alot of our patients like being kept barefoot too as they feel more relaxed like they would at home. Some of our patients though wish they had bras underwear at times etc but we are always nice about it and explain it keeps them safe
s1716698
28 Posts
Crazy
That's humiliating
Let them wear what they like