advice on how to deal with hostile resident

[SnowbirdinFL]

Basically within the last week, I was attacked by a resident via their electric wheelchair. I was trying to help a fellow CNA put this resident to bed and when I did something this resident disagreed with, this person ran my foot over with their electric wheelchair.

To add a bit of background, I am one of SEVERAL CNAs this resident has done this to. I'm just the first to file a grievance. The thing the resident was upset about was this person wanted me to move to a place in the room where I would be been even more vulnerable to being attacked. This was not a convenience (sp) thing on my end.

This happened almost a week ago and I still have not been contacted by any members of management regarding this episode. I am not happy about this.

I had another CNA point out to me that hypothetically speaking, if I had hit this resident I would have been terminated immediately. Also, in any other occurances regarding a RESIDENT even possibly getting hurt, I would be contacted in a couple of days.

I feel this incident may end up being minimalized by management and I'm concerned about the safety of the other people I work with. I am unaware of my options in this scenario and our CNAs already involve two people when providing care. I am clueless as to what to do....

[KimberlyRN89, BSN, RN]

First of all, if this resident has attacked other staff members before, they should have filed a report.

We've had residents like this, very violent & hostile. Its not until we COLLECTIVELY nag the management to do something(which results in them being taken to a local psych hospital for a few weeks) that things get done. The problem here lies with the other staff members. Of course the management is going to overlook this. In their minds, this is an isolated incident. But if there were other reports on file, they might think "hmm, maybe there is something we need to investigate here!".

I really don't know what else to say. But I do know one thing : every time you have to deal with this resident & they attack you: you fill out a report. And if you see them attack another staff member, encourage them to fill out a report also. That's the only way things will get done.

Good luck

[CoffeemateCNA]

Another reason to fill out an incident report is to cover yourself. If that resident injured your foot and you needed medical attention as a result, your employer would probably not stand behind you or cover the cost of the treatment unless an incident report were filled out.

I used to have a lady that would always run over staff and other resident's feet with her electric wheelchair, but it was just because she wasn't able to adequately control it. We filled out enough incident reports and got the chair taken away from her. The nurses got tired of calling the doctors and ordering portable X-rays for these poor people who were the lady's "victims." It was also not much fun for them to call the families and explain that some manic driver ran over their mom/dad's foot.

[DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN]

I am sorry this happened to you and glad you filed a report. I don't know what your expectations are for the facility's reaction. It is a pity that others have not submitted a written report when this happens. They should because behavior like this needs addressed -- for the safety of the staff AND the safety of the resident involved.

You did the right thing and I am interested to know how your facility responds...so please post and let us know.

[NM nurse to be]

I know of an aide who can no longer work on the floor and is on disability due to her foot being crushed by one of these electric wheelchairs. It was driven by someone who did get her on purporse too and she wasn't the first victim, only the most injured. This was before my time but I've heard the resident's chair was taken away and that person is no longer here but I think that may be because they died. It's been awhile and the lady's foot won't ever be right.

So do report this kind of stuff! EVERY time. I would hope the facility would get involved and either remove the chair or the resident, if the malicious behavior is a pattern. Be careful around those chairs though, in driving one from the side to park it, I ran into my own foot and even that hurt!

[LaterAlligator]

Can you file incident reports on behalf of other aides at your facility? At mine, occassionally because of time constraints one of us will do that for the other, putting in what happened from an observer's perspective. If so, maybe you can do a few stating that [today's date] you were informed of an incident that took place on [whenever it happened] involving Aide X and Resident Z. That way next time a report is filed it will be the 4th or 5th instead of only the second.

Good luck & I hope your foot is ok!

[SnowbirdinFL]

Thank you to all those that have responded.

Just wanted to update real quick.

First of all, the foot is fine...thank goodness! Second of all, after the urging of a nurse and couple of other CNAs, I spoke to our social worker who I was told does reap results from time to time. I told her what happened and that I was one of several people this had happened to. She apologized for what had happened to me and told me that the options that were being explored were either to have the resident put to bed before our shift started (and therefore not able to run us over with their wheelchair since this only occurs on my shift) or have their electric wheelchair replaced with a manual one. I was told that my ADON would speak to me about what happened and they never did. I highly doubt they will since this person is now on vacation and it has been two weeks since this happened.

I never for instance had the expectation of this resident being thrown out of the facility or something of that nature. Whatever happened, I just had the hope that another CNA would not have their feet ran over. I have been telling the other CNAs that I work with to watch their feet and to make a report if their feet are ran over.