bed baths

Nurses General Nursing

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How many nurses actually have time to give bed baths?

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.
How many nurses actually have time to give bed baths?

I'm not a nurse, so maybe I am not entitled to answer this, but I would hope the answer is every nurse. Unless your patient is able to wash him/herself on their own or able to shower on their own, or you are fortunate to have an aide who does them for you. You make it sound as though it is an impossible task. Please explain...

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Every post op patient returned to your unit is washed.

If they can't shower unassisted, you bed bath or shower/tub bath assist.

If they refuse or get shall we say "feisty", chart the reason for no personal hygiene provision.

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Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.
I'm not a nurse, so maybe I am not entitled to answer this, but I would hope the answer is every nurse. Unless your patient is able to wash him/herself on their own or able to shower on their own, or you are fortunate to have an aide who does them for you. You make it sound as though it is an impossible task. Please explain...

No, not every nurse has time to give a bed bath. Hopefully when nurse:patient ratio is such that there is no time for a bed bath, there is an aide who can do this for patients who are unable to care for their own hygiene. Unfortunately, there are times when an overworked nurse on a woefully understaffed unit has to prioritize tasks, and I can see how baths could at times go by the wayside.

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Specializes in LPN.

We have aides to give baths in our facility. Working nights, I have given and helped give baths as needed. I don't feel I would want to wait until bath day, if I had soiled myself badly, or had an odor. We make the time. It may not be the long, but will certianly be effective. Followup with lotion and clean gown. Might only take 5 mins, but if it's needed it's done, no matter what time of day it is. We have been known to give showers at 3am if someone really smells. Dignity is important.

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We have aides to give baths in our facility. Working nights, I have given and helped give baths as needed. I don't feel I would want to wait until bath day, if I had soiled myself badly, or had an odor. We make the time. It may not be the long, but will certianly be effective. Followup with lotion and clean gown. Might only take 5 mins, but if it's needed it's done, no matter what time of day it is. We have been known to give showers at 3am if someone really smells. Dignity is important.
This is the way it's been at both LTC facilities I've been with. Of course not all nurses feel they should be the one to give a patient a bath or do anything that the CNA is capable of doing. You'd be surprised at how many LPN's and RN's REFUSE to give a bed bath/shower or assist with anything other than meds and treatments. It blows my mind. What happened to teamwork? :rolleyes:

-Kristen

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I'm a LPN and am currently pursuing my RN. The other day I had a patient in my clinical that was 94 years old. As students we are required to see to the hygiene of our patients every day. I gave this patient the option of a shower or a bedbath since she had been showered the day prior. She chose to remain in bed and have a bedbath. I agreed. I had a horrible amount of paperwork to complete that day for school, but for some reason I just decided to let it go by the wayside in order to truly devote some TLC to this sweet lady. I gave her a thorough bedbath, lotioned her back and legs, brushed her dentures, put lip balm on her lips, and combed her badly neglected hair (she had been in the hospital for 6 days and I think this had been neglected.) I dressed her in a clean gown and put clean bedding on her bed. I left her in her chair for lunch, and a short time later came in to get her vital signs for Noon. Her B/P had bottomed out at 68/43 and I quickly got her on the bed and in Trendelenburg position. She passed away later that night. I am so glad I made the time to give her such thorough care that day. I realize that there are many times (perhaps even most of the time) that it is NOT possible to do this, but I feel I was fortunate to have been able to do this for this woman. The care I gave I'm almost sure was more important than any medical attention I could have given at that point. My medical interventions were not going to save her life, but I'm sure the human care I gave her made her last hours more comfortable and knowing I truly cared for her as a fellow human being surely was reassuring. I learned an important lesson that day. When there is time to offer TLC not only is the patient blessed by it, but the nurse can be blessed as well.:nurse:

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If not for our wonderful CNAs, many of our pts would not get a bath. Between discharges, admissions, and multiple other higher priorities, our pts, sadly, would not get this basic care. The last day I worked, we couldn't even go down for lunch. We ordered out, and would grab a bite each time we ran by the break room (and that was the only 'break' we got that day). I won't go in to everything that went on that shift, but it was pretty typical anymore- (either you start the IV NOW, and get the fluids/blood going, or their B/P will surely bottom out; blood sugar 50 needing immediate attention; O2 sats dropping on a young girl with fractured ribs and decreased breath sounds on the fracture side, etc., etc., etc., ...all day long.

(she ended up with a chest tube placed at bedside, with the nurse assisting, of course.)

Sometimes we just cannot get to, or help with the baths.

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I work in ICU. Many of our baths are done at night for total-care patients that are not able to help. Those that can help or do for themselves are saved for the day shift. No matter how busy we seem to get, we usually ALWAYS are able to get the total care baths done on our night shift. If one nurse gets overwhelmingly busy, the one CNA we have and a different RN will pitch in and do the bath for that nurse.

I don't understand the basis for your question though. Bathing of patients is NOT below RN's at all IMO (although I know some RN's think that for some reason). Bathing a patient is a GREAT opportunity to THOROUGHLY assess them from head to toe.

Besides, we use bath packs and when you put your mind to it - a full bath can take ten minutes or less.

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Specializes in ICU, transplant.
I work in ICU. Many of our baths are done at night for total-care patients that are not able to help. Those that can help or do for themselves are saved for the day shift. No matter how busy we seem to get, we usually ALWAYS are able to get the total care baths done on our night shift. If one nurse gets overwhelmingly busy, the one CNA we have and a different RN will pitch in and do the bath for that nurse.

I don't understand the basis for your question though. Bathing of patients is NOT below RN's at all IMO (although I know some RN's think that for some reason). Bathing a patient is a GREAT opportunity to THOROUGHLY assess them from head to toe.

Besides, we use bath packs and when you put your mind to it - a full bath can take ten minutes or less.

I work in the ICU as well and agree. We do a lot of "tag team" bathing if it's really busy. We often bathe admissions right away for exactly the reason you stated - thorough assessment.

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