Anyone else having an 'explosion' problem?

[camci]

By explosion I mean every resident on all of our halls (minus a few) are having diarrhea, MASSIVE. I'm talking you lift the sheets up and there is a pool of stool inbetween their legs.

I obviously have a strong stomach to this stuff, otherwise I wouldn't be in this field, but it's the time it takes to clean up one diarrhea resident that is stressful, not the actual diarrhea itself.

The past two days i've been having to start my last shift early and STILL end up going overtime, even THEN I have to leave without finishing everyone because the nurse tells me just to leave and don't worry about it.

I have to clean about 14 residents, a little over half of whom have diarrhea which can take up to 30 or more minutes to clean because I have to keep going back for another bag of wipes and do a complete bed change on all of them, and I had a couple make an accident after I change the sheets and before I put a clean diaper on.

Have any of ya'll experienced this? What do you do to make sure you finish everyone on time?

[weluv3]

Oh jeez, I'm in my CNA clinicals right now and won't finish up until late next month...I sure hope the explosive pooping doesn't start while we're there! But then again, guess we'll learn how to deal with it!

Hope I'll have my gag reflex turned off that day...

[Ev1987]

At my last facility, one of the nurses flat out told me " I don't have time to read your books!"..well if you don't read them, than how do you know whether or not the resident's have had BM's?:uhoh3:

About seven months ago, we started charting electronically. So resident's who don't have a bowel movement in 3 days are automatically in the nurses computer system, labeled as 'bowel protocol.' Plus, before handing out the M.O.M, they would ask the resident's 'When was the last time you had a BM?"

[interceptinglight, CNA]

About seven months ago, we started charting electronically. So resident's who don't have a bowel movement in 3 days are automatically in the nurses computer system, labeled as 'bowel protocol.' Plus, before handing out the M.O.M, they would ask the resident's 'When was the last time you had a BM?"

That's what our facility uses. Hand-held computers that you take with you and chart as you perform cares. We also still use a BM book and usually the nurses check that before they check the computer log because it's faster.

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

There's on nurse on the shift before mine who doses EVERYONE (right before we come in, of course) with MOM and suppositories if they haven't had an extra large BM in like, the last 4 hours. It's ridiculous. Most of them don't need it and they spend all day flipping out, probably because they feel like they're going to sh*t themselves.

[yousoldtheworld]

Our kids get enemas if they have not gone in 3 days. Normally on most nights, there are a few enemas per wing given. However, we write the residents' output on the sheets we turn into the nurse at the end of the shift and the nurses are supposed to mark the output down in their books.

We do have a couple of nurses who are famous for missing bms on the paper, but for the most part, the system works.