Complete and total disregard for Visiting Hours! (vent)

TazziRN, RN · May 30, 2007

Another reason nursing is so hard......the public thinks we are nothing but servants there to do their bidding, and how dare we ask them to follow the rules?????

Dolce, RN · May 30, 2007

Why are family member's sooo insensitive to the patient's roommates? I had a patient who was going NUTS because her roommates family member's child was screaming bloody murder. You know, those flimsy curtains don't cut out any sound. It is just plain rude to not leave when it is late at night and the other patient is trying to sleep. If it was a private room I would bend the rules, but a double room is just a big "no, no."

glasgow3 · May 30, 2007

Another reason nursing is so hard......the public thinks we are nothing but servants there to do their bidding, and how dare we ask them to follow the rules?????

At my facility we have completely solved the problem of visitors following the rules: Administration eliminated many of the rules and the few we have left are waived if anyone complains.

In our critical care unit patients can visit as often as they like for as long as they like. People even are allowed to bring infants into the rooms----and they do.

Limits on visitor numbers, family members eating in the rooms, using cell phones next to equipment, touching the equipment, being loud etc......no longer enforced because they will complain to administration who will allow whatever and reprimand the nurse to boot.

The result is a unit which is unbearably loud, devoid of confidentiality, an infection control nightmare, etc....all in the name of Press-Ganey.

And the final "kicker"? Even though we have completely open visiting, in the 2 plus years we have used Press Ganey our "adequancy of visiting hours" question got 100% top scores for just 2 months' scores. It's been as low as the 70s.

Silverdragon102, BSN · May 30, 2007

I remember as a student being asked by one of the staff nurses to go round and tell people that visiting time was over (8pm) and then getting called back from my student room at 9.30pm as one of the patients was threatening discharge as I had told her husband it was time to leave. Got no support from the trained staff and was made to apologise for something I had been told to do and did in a professional manner. Once qualified I always made a point of going myself when visiting times was over as I didn't want to put someone through what had happened to me, the only exceptions was if I was caught up in an emergency

I am Nurseman · May 30, 2007

I really don't see it as much of a problem. As long as they are discreet and don't cause problems, they can stay all night for all I care.

Many years ago my Mother was dying in the hospital I worked in. I spent 3 straight days at her bedside. Nobody asked me to leave, but if they had.....well, there aren't enough Security guys in the WORLD to have dragged me out.

I see it a basic customer service, if they don't cause me a headache, I say let them stay.

Quickbeam, BSN, RN · May 30, 2007

In my 21 years of nursing, I've never worked anywhere that had any limits on visiting. What was most difficult was working nights on a very busy pediatric floor and having streams of visitors coming in at 2 AM demanding

meals/bedding/turning the TV on/ you name it.

Both times my husband was hospitalized I never left him. I caught 2 serious medication errors in time. Our local hospital only has private rooms. I slept in a chair at the bedside. I can see why spouses would want to do that.

santhony44, MSN, RN, NP · May 30, 2007

I really don't see it as much of a problem. As long as they are discreet and don't cause problems, they can stay all night for all I care.
Many years ago my Mother was dying in the hospital I worked in. I spent 3 straight days at her bedside. Nobody asked me to leave, but if they had.....well, there aren't enough Security guys in the WORLD to have dragged me out.
I see it a basic customer service, if they don't cause me a headache, I say let them stay.

But in the OP's post, the husband was causing a problem- the roommate was upset and worried he was going to stay all night.

Private rooms would solve that problem, but that's not always feasible in some facilities.

MarySunshine · May 30, 2007

I'm so sick of this. Visiting at all ungodly hours is rarely for the patient's benefit (heck, they have to sleep SOMETIME). And EVERYONE thinks that they are THE EXCEPTION to the rule. We're supposed to only let people break the rules if the patient is actively dying or is under 18. But damned if administration is going to back you up if you try to enforce it with someone who is refusing to leave. So, if someone is really standing their ground then we have to back down. Then all the other family members on the unit start asking why they can't stay too. ARGH!!!!!

At the rate my ICU is going, I'm expecting the operating room and cath lab to have a free visiting policy soon....

rita359 · May 30, 2007

Must say that when my mother and son were in the hospital someone was there almost all the time. Being a nurse I kept quiet and out of the way. It was 2330 when I discovered Mom had no output the shift before and had a fc. Turns out no one even knew it was a problem and besides she had 80 mg of lasix ordered q8h which she also had at 4 with no output. I just know the midnight dose would do better for someone dehydrated. I've said for almost 20 years now that with nurse patient ratios of 1/8 or more and with sicker and sicker patients in that 1/8 the staff can't care for all the little things patients need. Mom's few sips of water would have been a real irritation to staff and she would not have asked them for it but we were more than glad to do whatever we could to make her comfortable. See what you think when it is your loved one in the bed.

arpeggiated · May 30, 2007

Dying patients we try to put in a private room so family can visit as much as they please.

There was one patient if I had on an assignment again, I was going to be very unwise in my choice of words. Her roommate had terminal colon CA, had a colostomy, and was in for a small bowel obstruction. Her daughter was at Stanford, recieving treatment for recently dx brain cancer, with poor prognosis. They had been profiled in our town's paper. She was the sweetest, most wonderful lady I've met.

The roommate came in with pneumothorax s/p MVA. Yes, I'm sorry you got in a car accident on vacation and had to come to the hospital. Yes, I know colostomies don't smell that wonderful. But you DON'T need your husband and adult daughter staying with you 24 hours a day. You don't need three cans of air freshener. You don't need me to heat up McDonald's at three in the morning, when your roommate is vomiting.

She went home, finally, and the lady with CA ended up dying. Her daughter came back home from Stanford to be with her as she passed. She was gracious to the last moment of her life.

Lorie P. · May 30, 2007

The thing that get me with visiting hours is when visitors show up at midnight or later to see poor pt.

Some of our rooms are semi-private and several times I have had to tell the spouse to leave due to the other pt privacy. I mean how would you feel if you were in the room and the other lady's husband stayed all night?

Also from a patient's oint of veiw, visitors are sooo insensitive. I was on the cardiac floor, nitro drip going, HA from hell 10+ on pain scale, my room mate was 93, just wating to go home the next day. Her grandaughters were there, 3 cell phones ringing, room phone ringing, and the one gd broke out the hair dryer, curling iron and nail polish so that gran, could look presentable when they took out in the hall in a wheel chair!! Thenhad the nerve to ask me, if they were bothering me??&*&%&*&. I literally had tears running down my face and begging my husband to tell them to shut-up. Finially after 6 hrs of this, the visitors leave, only to have 4 more show up and say " oh just a little family reunion with mother!

Long story short, charge nurse had to through them out and then they complained that it wasn't fair. No what wasn't fair, was putting me ( age 41) with angina, nitro drip, with a 93 yo old that was being d/c'd the next day.

So yes, I dislike visitors after hours, unless the pt is dying or in a private room.