bad nursing care rant

[ashleyisawesome]

sdifhaseuifhaeuifhaeui!

Just went with a friend to visit her dad in the hospital. i couldnt believe the conditions there, i was pretty disgusted. we walk in and there is a soiled brief on the floor, his gown is soaked in urine, we had to physically go to the nurses station and ask for someone to come clean him up. He told us he almost fell twice because he was ringing the call bell for help to go to the bedside commode and no one came both times. mind you, this is in an ICU. So I am assuming the nurse: pt ratio is 2:1, MAYBE 3:1 max.. And the girl who finally came in to clean him was wearing an ID badge that said pca, so they had at least one aide..

how is this acceptable? I've never been to this hospital before, and I have heard bad things about it, but seriously? I've never seen anything that bad in the hospitals I've done clinical at, especially on my ICU rotations. Those nurses were usually pretty anal about keeping everything clean, and answering call bells etc. And never have I seen a dirty brief left on the floor, thats just gross.

My friend was pretty upset by this herself. Shes upset enough that her dad is sick enough to be in the ICU, and then to see all this didnt make it any better..

Are we overreacting? sorry for the angry anecdote, just wanted to vent to some people who knew what i was talking about. I told her that if it is possible, she should see about getting him transferred to a better hospital. :heartbeat

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

May I RESPECTFULLY ask why did your friend not complain there and then to the NUM or whoever is in charge? I get a little pee'd off at people coming on here saying this and that is JUST NOT RIGHT!...but they never seem to do anything about it, then they keep returning to AN complaining of the same or similar things once again.

If that was my Dad, I would have demanded answers there and then, and I wouldn't have left until he was cleaned up to my satisfaction. I would have asked for an explanation and voiced my objections in a confrontational manner, until I was given the answers.

I would suggest strongly to your friend to document the whole incident and demand answers. There isn't much point in venting to us when your friend hasn't done anything about the situation. Maybe as a nursing student, you too could complain re what you have witnessed too? Also it's a good lesson in how NOT to nurse people.

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Also I don't know how many times I have had a patient tell me the light was on "for a half an hour" when I literally see it go on for about two minutes while I'm in another room. Not saying this was the case, but when you're sick enough to be in the ICU you can get confused about time.

I too had this last week. I was caring for a very obstreporous 90+ lady and she complained she'd rung 2 hours ago and I personally, didn't come into her room. Well this lady had been getting on my nerves all night. Nothing I did for this lady - either when she was alone or when her son & DIL was there - was good enough.

So I said to her straight:

1) I wasn't even on SHIFT 2 hours ago, I started late cos the agency called me late, so it wasn't me you're referring to.

2) I make it a habit to round on patients every hour if possible and at least every 2 hours, so there is no way your light would be on and I wouldn't see it.

But she still wasn't happy. The son was as bad as her, wanting her to have all these special creams ordered and special tests cos 'her skin was dry' (this woman had had extensive cardiac, renal etc work-ups). I had to say, kindly, SHE IS 92! Her skin WILL be dry, she is not applying the cream her own GP ordered for her, cos she is attention seeking and wants 'special medications' to feed her ego.

Very draining!

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

I've been lucky enough to work in places where the above scenario, in ICU, would not happen. Had the story been about med/surg, maybe. On a really bad day.

Because I've never seen it, I find it hard to believe.

My apologies for my doubt.

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

We had a patient code and die. Expected, horrible as in the family could not, would not accept that a 95 year old with endstage everything is not going to live with a hgb of 4, active GI bleed, and wouldn't take blood (not for any religious reason, they were afraid that they'd get blood from "the wrong color." Seriously. And they didn't like it when I told them that blood only came in one color, RED..).

So we go back to our rooms to check on our other folks, and one of the nurses gets "jumped" by the family of a pt because they hit the callbell and wanted a blanket. The nurse explained we'd had an emergency (like you could miss "CODE BLUE, ICU, CODE BLUE, ICU" screaming out of the speakers, people running with the crash cart, screaming crying family members, etc.). He said he didn't give a ***** about someone else's problem, he was going to file a complaint because he had to wait 20 minutes for a blanket. Gee, buddy, thanks a lot.

If the nurse was lazy, by all means, complain. But what if she was in the middle of changing the brief when a code was called? I'd have probably slung the dirty one in the direction of the trash can, yanked up the rails, pulled up a sheet and ran. I wouldn't have had time to bathe the pt, change the gown, tidy up the room, etc. Just know what was going on before you complain.

Crap happens.

[giveface]

I just think that of course, wherever possible, we should attempt to give our professional colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Sure there is the odd bad apple out there that ignores these things, but by and large this is usually because of overworked front line staff nurses with too many patients on our assignment list. Nurse managers have an equal, perhaps greater responsibility to ensure adequate staffing levels. Again, we cannot be in two places at once. Not saying that this is what happened in the OP's case, but I have a hard time believing there is an epidemic of terrible nurses out there.

[L8RRN]

If he was confused, perhaps he took the brief off himself and it ended up on the floor. Not making excuses...there are great nurses and there are ones that shouldn't be...but sometimes the story you get from the patient is not exactly accurate.

[eagle78]

I am not a nurse, but I have recently had the experience of having a loved one in an ICU. My father had a massive stroke and was in an NICU. Now his condition was critical, but out of the 8 or so patients that were on the floor, including my father in his critical state, there were two others who were at deaths door. Can you imagine if both had coded at the same time???

One died on a saturday evening, the other died sunday morning. Those poor nurses were working their buns off trying to attend to all those critical patients. Now OP I am not trying to dispute your experience, I was not there. But after seeing a situation like this I can see what one of the other posters meant by the nurses not being able to be in two places at once.

[MALENURSE50, MSN, RN]

Sometimes we have other things to do than clean ****

[wooh, BSN, RN]

...but at the time there was no code going on to my knowledge..

To your knowledge.

It would be nice if at "allnurses" we could try to give our fellow nurses the benefit of the doubt. If I wanted to hear patient and family complaints, I'd go to work and read Press Gainey comments. I don't go to a [insert disease/condition of your choice] patient support forum and whine about patients. It would be nice if people would have the same decency to not come here and whine about our comrades.

[NENE RN]

I have ben the aide in that situation and a visitor too. We also have hourly rounds to do the 5Ps..pain potty position etc. I have head pts say that they hadn't had a bath in a week and I know that they had a bath for the last two days because I gave it to them.

On the opposite side, I have visited with someone that no one check for the 3 or 4 hours. During the last hour or so of visiting the patient repeatedly requested medicine. I went to the desk to speak with the RN only to get we will be there in a min. RN in station laughing and looking at a magazine. Twice. To no avail. They had a board telling here last pain med was given 8 hrs before; next dose available had been almost 2 hrs prior. PRN med. I spoke with the charge and also told my friend to ask for the manager/director in the am. Finally before leaving, RN came to give meds and went to change dressing without washing hands rubbing her face and nose snottin' and c***. ....Nope not going to happen wash your hands please thank you so much. Dropped supplies on ground in H2O she spilled She was going to try and use them. The other ABDs were sitting in the H2O that didnt reach the floor. OMG You have to be ******* kidding me right. Nope not using those to pack in anywhere on her. It was pretty bad. End of shift thank God a new RN came in. My friend said she was so much better. Mind you she had just had a C-section and ended up with an infection in c-section incision that had to be opened up more just to treat.

As consumers/patients you must take an active role and tell RNs when something is wrong..If they don't fix it go above their head...follow the chain of command. I am always professional when approaching RN/Manager because I do not ever want to have someone use "she was rude or ignorant." No, I just want you to do you job. There are good and bad in all professions including nursing.

BTW No code calls on unit...no rapid responses, during my time on the unit.

[leslie :-D]

Not saying that this is what happened in the OP's case, but I have a hard time believing there is an epidemic of terrible nurses out there.

it's not an epidemic, but when you see enough of them (which could only be a handful), it scares the **** out of you...thinking that these people are licensed and caring for our pts.

it sounds like you've been blessed by working with good nurses.

besides, i'm not one to blindly defend a profession, or put my hands over my ears and 'lalala' me out of not hearing you.

i mean, it's ok to vent about nurses who go in it for the money, nurses that are too big to be nurses, nurses that are "too posh to wash"?

but as soon as a visitor vents about what she saw, other nurses would rather defend him/her, because s/he is one of us?

it doesn't make sense to me.

but it's true, that i reacted to what was written and agree there could have been valid reasoning for what was observed.

it's important for people to know that none of us is perfect.

that goes for everyone in the world.

so it shouldn't be the end of the world when one finds out that jane shouldn't be a nurse.

there are DONs that have played dirty by unfairly black balling a nurse that s/he fired, while protecting the bad nurse.

i thank God that most nurses aren't this way.

but enough still remain where it puts unnecessary risk to the pts.:oornt:

ok, then.

i feel better now.

and thank you for listening.:thankya:

leslie:)

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I got a patient last night that was transferred from another unit. Patient had C.Diff. Patient got there and the CNA went to get vitals and routine stuff before I got in there because I had 3 admits in the 30 mins I got there. I was called in. So I go into the room and the CNA had her in the shower and I went to help her and ask what was going on and she said the patient had feces all over her. Dried for a long time and her gown was absolutely disgusting. I was appalled that she was left in this sort of condition. I think the patient might have been a bit delayed and she didn't complain or anything, she was a very young female. I am actually surprised how often this happens. Barring an emergency (which even then doesn't usually tie up everyone, most just want to watch) there is no excuse to leave a patient lying around in feces and urine. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for his daughter to see.