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people sometimes just need time to grieve for loss of body image. I did home health and hospice with a super dooper WOCN and she told me out of all of her many years she only had one patient that never would assume care of their ostomy until the HHA finally had to "fire" her. It just takes time and good teaching and sometimes some prodding after an ample amount of time has passed. I would say its very rare for someone to get sent home with something life changing without home care or clinic followup. Even in the case of mastectomies I have gone in to care for the patient at home and help her with dressing changes even if it wasn't really "necessary" from a wound standpoint to help with coping
anon456, BSN, RN
3 Articles; 1,144 Posts
I had a patient last week who was not old, and had a life-altering surgery that would impact them socially and physically. Although the pt was prepped ahead of the surgery on what to expect, they were in shock and did not want to look at the changes after the surgery. This is to be expected for awhile but the pt kept refusing to look at or participate in care and soon it was time for discharge. The pt had healed enough to go home but still would not demonstrate proper care to show they could do this at home for themselves. The pt was eventually discharged when I was not there and I'm not sure what happened.
What do you do in this kind of situation where the pt just never comes around to accepting and caring for their needs? That was one of the criteria for discharge, but what if they just never want to do it-- they can't stay in hospital forever if they have physically healed.