Call bells! I am beginning to think call bells are the worst invention in the world.
Ring, ring ,ring.
Today, the call bells were crazy. Our secretary kept track. We had 97 call bells in 2 1/2 hours from 26 pts. Several retreat offenders. You know the ones. They ring, you tell them you will be there shorty, 30 secs later, they ring again, and again and again. Look lady, my kegs are short, I simply cannot get from the nursing station to you in 30 secs.
One pt keeps ringing because he's lonely. One just puts her finger and the button and holds it until her nurse gets there.
One pt rang to have her table cleaned off.
Good thing I wasn't playing the drinking game, one drink for every call bell. I wouldn't sober up until Xmas!
Good heavens this thread ruffled my feathers just like a hallway full of call bells!
I work in LTC and we have a few who use their call light AND yell out at the same time. It has gotten to the point where I've told a few the story of the boy who cried wolf.
It is everyones job to answer bells but honestly where I work.. I only see floor nurses and CNAs answering bells 99% of the time.
My pet peeve? - When I am passing meds(which are already very late) and trying to concentrate and I get told.. "theres a call light going off over there.."
Sounds like this a typical LTC lack of teamwork issue.
I actually told my DON in a moment of frustration, "OK, go answer it then." I don't recommend this approach as a rule, but in that moment it worked. He turned around and answered the light.
Interesting that the DON had to be told that. Obviously didn't get his job due to intelligence.
Years ago I was working in ICU and had a repeat offender. Finally she said I'm so sorry I keep ringing the bell. I said "its ok, we bill one dollar each time you ring" It will just go on your bill! She was like really! I laughed and said, just kidding. She laid off the bell after that!
Too bad that doesn't really happen. Would make a big difference. An excellent idea.
Don't worry, I knew what you meant when you said..retreat instead of repeat.....Completely.....omg......I Have worked in LTC since the early 90s..I am tired of it...maybe because I am losing my patience and don't feel well most times myself....the tolerance is wearing thin....especially with excessive call bell ringing...most times I feel like taking the cord and wrapping it around their necks....You get BONKERS....and its not emergencies.....the emergencies YOU always find when you happened to walk into the room at the right moment....I am usually Left with a very sick respiratory patient they didn't give a neb treatment to or left her terribly SOB and did nothing....and these are the people that NEED TO RING....not the pull my curtain, close my window, the soup needs to be warmed up, My blanket needs straightening, etc....THESE ARE JOBS THE AIDES should be doing and MAKING SURE their patients needs are being watched...and are keeping vigilant to cues of illness . I tell my Aides all the time.....and they should know cause they have been there working far long before I got there and should know their patients quirks, wants, and demands...that NO CALL bells should be ringing......But what happens with the elderly is that THEY KNOW THAT YOU have to answer these bells..ITS YOUR JOB.....I had one woman ring every 5 minutes....for little things....Oh...change the channel on the tv....then you stand there for 10 minutes trying to find her channel because she knew what the number of the channel was but forgot...so you flip through the whole channel system. I make no apology...but this system of patients rights has gone too far to the point where the nurse is answering too many call bells for absolute nonsense calls.....I cant run like I used to.....I feel sorry for many of them......but the familys pump the information into their heads too....OH...RING FOR THE NURSE if you want the volume up on the TV....RING FOR THE NURSE if you feel cold.....Ring for the nurse....ring for the nurse.....and then the family stands there and doesn't do a thing for their loved one.......I admired and respected those family members and friends that ACTUALLY did something for the residents...instead of standing there and ringing the callbell for the resident!!!!!! OH it gets me so angry......I thought I had high blood pressure recently....I always ran in the 120s over 80s......and found out my BP was going high at work....till I found out IT WAS WORK.....
I am not making myself sick for these people that think you are a maid or somekind of slave...it really takes away from giving care to those that are really sick and it angers me terribly.......
I think the system should charge the patients for each call bell ring
I'm in LTC. Calls lights drive me insane! One lady called over 500 times in 1 month for things like: drink of water, scratch her nose, wipe her eyes, move blanket 1", blow her nose, water her plant. I'm not exaggerating! She can use her hands (says PT) but refuses.
At least in acute you know they'll leave!
Yes they leave, but then a crazier family replaces the last one. It's shameful the way some of these family members act. One guy yesterday came into another pt's rm while I'm giving IV lasix, to tell me his dad needs his pillow adjusted! He did stuff like that ALL DAY 😠I finally got rude with him and told him that he needed to push the red button on the call light and as soon as someone was free then they'd be in there to straighten the pillow, but we need to prioritize between the pt's needs as to what we can get to first. Meanwhile I'm giving him a look that says he should be ashamed of himself that he couldn't touch the pillow himself. He's one that I wished would use the call bell tho. He would just follow random ppl in scrubs around asking for things even though I thoroughly explained to him that the quickest way to get assistance is the call bell bc random ppl don't know who his dad is.
It's shameful the way some of these family members act. One guy yesterday came into another pt's rm while I'm giving IV lasix, to tell me his dad needs his pillow adjusted! He did stuff like that ALL DAY ������ I finally got rude with him and told him that he needed to push the red button on the call light and as soon as someone was free then they'd be in there to straighten the pillow, but we need to prioritize between the pt's needs
THIS :banghead: me off to no end. I am getting sick and tired of having to freaking justify that I have to give someone a med on time vs. me toileting their family member RIGHT NOW and there is no tech available RIGHT NOW as they are toileting SOMEONE ELSE.
Totally agree! I work in a physical rehab center, and three halls go to one phone at the main desk. It constantly rings and I wish it did not got to the central phone line. It creates so much distracting racket at the front desk, and tons of noise outside rooms. It isn't realistic, considering we are all assigned different patients. I preferred the system in the nursing home, where it would page the individual nurse or CNA. Rehab is the worst for requests and riding the lights. We had a little lady recently that would ring every few seconds because she was anxious and lonely. I saw nurses with the most patience lose their cool over this little lady. Again, it was a call system with a phone line at the main desk for three halls out of six in the whole building. Great places but I feel constantly over-stimulated when I work, and I feel like I still hear the call bell tones when I am laying down to sleep.
Nattypage25. As far as the lady goes, you guys need a behavior plan for her. She needs to keep using her abilities as long as she can, so I would have her scratch her own nose! We had to set limits like this in the hospital. We would tell them to "bundle their needs" and tell them they could come to the nurses station every half our or hour, depending on how much they were being disruptive. Otherwise, you spend too much time dealing with one person whose obsessing. Get the team onboard!
The most pertinent comment I can add here is that when my husband was hospitalized and experiencing chest pains, he hit that call bell hard. His nurse responded quickly and knew just what to do. He was diagnosed with a PE and her quick response may have saved his life!
I think if we charged them for every call bell push things would change. Kind of like the telephone companies charging for directory assistance, and the nurse gets the money from the call bell pushes, not the company, not the manager, not the docs.
Nattypage25. As far as the lady goes, you guys need a behavior plan for her. She needs to keep using her abilities as long as she can, so I would have her scratch her own nose! We had to set limits like this in the hospital. We would tell them to "bundle their needs" and tell them they could come to the nurses station every half our or hour, depending on how much they were being disruptive. Otherwise, you spend too much time dealing with one person whose obsessing. Get the team onboard!
She needs a psych consult and some good psych meds.
:banghead:
me off to no end. I am getting sick and tired of having to freaking justify that I have to give someone a med on time vs. me toileting their family member RIGHT NOW and there is no tech available RIGHT NOW as they are toileting SOMEONE ELSE.
NattyPaige25
9 Posts
You must not have a medical background at all... why are you on all nurses?