Call Bells and IV Pumps

[avaloncar]

.....who else hears them after a long shift? Because I sure do. lmao!

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I'm bad to sleepwalk anyway, but when I used to work nocs, my DH told me that he had to get up and lead me back to bed on more than one occasion. He said every time I'd jump out of bed and run out of the room, he'd ask what was wrong and I'd tell him I was "going to catch this IV pump...I'd be right back".

[Delicate Flower]

The hopitals I work at are really into noise reduction because it's an item on those ridiculous patient satisfaction surverys. They put up little decibel-sensing stoplights in the nurses station that are supposed to be green when we're good quiet little girls and boys, yellow when we're getting too raucous, and red when all he**breaks loose. They even had a contest between the units to see whose stoplight report was the best. Well, that's all fine and good, but...I have worked night shift for 7 years at many difference facilities, and 99 out of 100 times when it gets really noisy, it's not the staff whooping it up having a good time. It's the freakin pumps, call lights, and monitor alarms. Oh, and patients yelling into the hallways because they're either confused or obnoxious. Of course, we need alarms of some sort. But do they have to be screeching loud headache-inducing alarms? If alarm volume and intensity equates with severity and riskiness - why is the feeding pump alarm one of the loudest and most annoying? And, what's wrong with a vibration? Or a text page? And why, oh why, do they feel it necessary to have call light speakers in the supply room, employee break room, and even the freakin staff bathroom? They want you to take at least a 20 minute non-interrupted break so they don't get in trouble with the labor board for not paying you for work, and then they blast the hellacious call light bedlam right into the room you go to to get away from it all. It makes me jumpy and paranoid.