Covid Abuse!

[guest1163268]

A man in Canada has punched a nurse in the face for giving his wife a Covid vaccine. 

Just wondering what sort of abuse has other nurses suffered from the public or even patients and it doesn't have to be just giving Covid vaccines. 

Man punches Nurse for giving his wife a vaccine!

[guest1163268]

So now parents are barricading schools in Knoxville, Tennessee to prevent children from wearing masks! 

Those kids are going to turn out well I bet? 

[feelix, RN]

Strange ad popping up.

[toomuchbaloney]

2 hours ago, feelix said:

Strange ad popping up.

Run your antiviral software and avoid opening links found in social media.  

[jobellestarr]

Well, I’ve been slugged, slapped, bit, sworn at and had a full water pitcher thrown at my head. A friend was hit in the head with a telephone. It’s been going on forever but it’s definitely increasing. Hospitals need to step up. Completely unacceptable. 

[Susie2310]

On 9/27/2021 at 6:30 AM, JKL33 said:

It's also time for "the customer is always right" to go away. What nonsense to begin with.

Like nearly every other good thing in the universe, customer service has an extreme and a point at which it is unsustainable.

Healthcare corporations have pushed customer service to the extreme; to the point which people actually do get hurt and patient care objectively suffers. I know why it is important to involve and listen to patients and families, truly. But making very basic customer service issues part of the reimbursement mechanism was a big mistake because hospital corporations can explode any good thing and turn it into a raging dumpster fire.

I was recently in a hospital where I passed a few signs in halls and elevators that had a really nice statement about how the health care team is there to provide best care to patients and that persons demonstrating any sort of verbally or physically violent behavior would be removed from the premises. What's sad about that is that I've been in other hospitals in the area too (different healthcare systems), and they would NEVER post such a message that might offend some of their customers. They should be held accountable. I think if you're not willing to tell customers that aggressive behavior against staff/employees will not be tolerated then you don't deserve to be in business.

My belief and my experience is that in health care, where patients usually have to be seriously ill to be hospitalized, where the threshold for admission is higher that it was in the past, there are naturally more patients in physiological or psychological crisis, which also results in huge stressors for family members.  When I say crisis, I use that term to refer to the many serious medical problems where the patient may be unable to employ the degree of control over their behavior that they would if they were not in a physiological or psychological crisis.  This includes numerous medical conditions that patients commonly seek care for and are admitted for that are known to result in an altered mental status, from acute renal failure, to stroke, heart attack, sepsis, shock, delirium, dementia, polypharmacy, hypoxia, electrolyte imbalances, psychological crises, drug or alcohol intoxication or withdrawal, TBI, and so on.  

It's not a matter of rewarding patients for bad behavior.

Nursing/health care is a difficult field in that the people we serve are often not at a state of physiological or psychological wellness, or they wouldn't be seeking care from us.  Often, they are unable to behave in a reasonable, rational, considerate, courteous manner, even if they would like to.  So, to a large extent I find it unreasonable when health care workers (the majority of nurses are female) complain about patients' bad behavior or propensity for aggressive behavior in those patients who are experiencing physiological causes and effects and psychological causes and effects beyond their control.

I've witnessed very poor behavior from some nurses towards patients, including towards my own family member/s when they were patients; I've noticed that a number of nurses tend not to examine their own behavior but are quick to blame patients and/or their families.  Patients are often very sick and their sickness often results in them not being in control of their behavior.

Our choice, as nurses, is, do we want to, and are we able to, take care of sick patients who may not be in control of their behavior due to causes that they can't control?  That's a big question.  I think that's the real problem, not badly behaved patients. The great majority of our patients are not people who want to wreak violence or abuse on health care workers for their own pleasure; they are people who are stressed physiologically or psychologically beyond their normal coping abilities.  

 

 

 

[Guest219794]

3 hours ago, Susie2310 said:

Our choice, as nurses, is, do we want to, and are we able to, take care of sick patients who may not be in control of their behavior due to causes that they can't control?  That's a big question.  I think that's the real problem, not badly behaved patients.

100% disagree.

While less experienced in the rest of healthcare, I can tell you there is actually an inverse relationship between acuity and violence in the ER. 

This is not about the liver failure patient with hepatic encephalopathy, or dementia, or even the mentally ill.

This is about people who were a**holes prior to admission, and will be a**holes after discharge, despite there being no ICD10 code for this condition.  While there are both environmental and hereditary components to the condition, it is often multigenerational, and can be widespread within a family.

Case in point- this thread is has nothing to do with actual illness.  As many symptoms as are associated with Covid, being an a**hole is not one of them.

For the most part, these are bullies who have been taught that healthcare workers are consequence-free victims.  

 

[feelix, RN]

And screw Press-Gainey and other scores. They do not reflect quality of care. They are the sword of Democles hung over the head of hospital management, who in turn make the life of nurses miserable. There are nurses on the floor who comb the hair of 20 year old postpartum mothers, then ask them for a good review by name.

This is what nursing has come down to: Customer Ratings. Just like the entertainment industry.

Nurses are putting their lives on line so people can complain over the TV not working.

[JKL33]

8 hours ago, Susie2310 said:

My belief and my experience is that in health care, where patients usually have to be seriously ill to be hospitalized, where the threshold for admission is higher that it was in the past, there are naturally more patients in physiological or psychological crisis, which also results in huge stressors for family members.  When I say crisis, I use that term to refer to the many serious medical problems where the patient may be unable to employ the degree of control over their behavior that they would if they were not in a physiological or psychological crisis.

I know this is an anecdote (what I'm going to say next), my report is n =1. But here has been my observation formed over years and innumerable patient experiences (first in inpatient, then ED):

People do become stressed related to the illness/hospitalization and all the attendant stressors and the finer details of how they present themselves may be elevated a little. That is, their tone of voice may be a little more direct, their pitch or volume may not be the exact same as it would be were they out walking in the park on a sunny fall day. Their body language may be a little more tense. They may cry. They may use language that is a little more harsh than normal (using a profanity when they had normally been observed avoiding all profanity, for example). They may pace around, fidget, seem restless, have some nervous energy. They may generally be a little  more challenging. Very often they, at some point, make some statement about how stressed they are or tell stories that allow the nurse to further understand how this situation is affecting them/the family.

What they don't do is change their underlying personality. It is what you see. I've been with people absolutely broken, receiving the worst information anyone could ever receive. I've seen some of these people have a physical reaction such as hitting something--but we nurse's aren't stupid, there's a difference between hitting your hand/fist into the bed rail that is right beneath one's hand or the arm of the chair one is sitting in...as opposed to throwing something at a person or, say, having enough wherewithal/purpose to make sure to actually destroy something valuable. There's basic reaction and then there's "I will make you suffer/pay." 

I was taught in nursing school about all the behaviors that we should understand (accept) because of people's stress. What I was taught does not compute in the balance of my lived experience as a nurse.

What I have observed is that people will be who they already are plus some small degree of elevation of that. For instance, if you usually say "darn" you may say "damn." Also, if you're a belligerent jerk in every day life, you will be belligerent + some, when stressed. You will not change from an "oh my goodness" person to someone who punches someone or throws things at someone.

[jobellestarr]

8 hours ago, Susie2310 said:

My belief and my experience is that in health care, where patients usually have to be seriously ill to be hospitalized, where the threshold for admission is higher that it was in the past, there are naturally more patients in physiological or psychological crisis, which also results in huge stressors for family members.  When I say crisis, I use that term to refer to the many serious medical problems where the patient may be unable to employ the degree of control over their behavior that they would if they were not in a physiological or psychological crisis.  This includes numerous medical conditions that patients commonly seek care for and are admitted for that are known to result in an altered mental status, from acute renal failure, to stroke, heart attack, sepsis, shock, delirium, dementia, polypharmacy, hypoxia, electrolyte imbalances, psychological crises, drug or alcohol intoxication or withdrawal, TBI, and so on.  

It's not a matter of rewarding patients for bad behavior.

Nursing/health care is a difficult field in that the people we serve are often not at a state of physiological or psychological wellness, or they wouldn't be seeking care from us.  Often, they are unable to behave in a reasonable, rational, considerate, courteous manner, even if they would like to.  So, to a large extent I find it unreasonable when health care workers (the majority of nurses are female) complain about patients' bad behavior or propensity for aggressive behavior in those patients who are experiencing physiological causes and effects and psychological causes and effects beyond their control.

I've witnessed very poor behavior from some nurses towards patients, including towards my own family member/s when they were patients; I've noticed that a number of nurses tend not to examine their own behavior but are quick to blame patients and/or their families.  Patients are often very sick and their sickness often results in them not being in control of their behavior.

Our choice, as nurses, is, do we want to, and are we able to, take care of sick patients who may not be in control of their behavior due to causes that they can't control?  That's a big question.  I think that's the real problem, not badly behaved patients. The great majority of our patients are not people who want to wreak violence or abuse on health care workers for their own pleasure; they are people who are stressed physiologically or psychologically beyond their normal coping abilities.  

 

 

 

Do you pat them on the hand and say “it’s OK, there, there.” I also disagree 100%. One of the more ridiculous and offensive nursplaying posts I’ve seen on here. 

[JKL33]

The other day I left the grocery store and walked back to my vehicle and there was an elderly man whose vehicle was parked on my driver's side and he was arranging his groceries in his car with the door open such that I could see from a distance I wouldn't be able to access my door to get back in my vehicle. It doesn't take a whole lot of insight to figure out that with the slowing of age, decreased peripheral vision, concentration on the task at hand, etc., he was not trying to block anyone. [I didn't even say anything, just inconspicuously waited patiently...it was less than a minute].

On the other hand, while I was in the store there was someone taking up a register who was not actively doing anything except standing there talking on the phone while a line of people were waiting for open registers.

It isn't that difficult to tell who is who and what is what with people's demeanors and behaviors. All of our collective actions tell people who we are.

Susie - I would ask you this: Have you ever physically assaulted a worker? Have you ever used vulgar language against their person? Have you ever quickly looked around to find something big enough to throw at them that would cause physical damage? Destroyed valuable property of a business?

I believe that you haven't, because you (and a whole lot of other stressed patients/family members) are not the kind of situation we're talking about.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Susie,

As stated above, there is a huge difference between being stressed d/t illness & being abusive because that is their nature. Bullies generally are going to bully. I’ve stepped in when a pt (almost always in the ED with a minor complaint) is giving a colleague (almost always a younger smaller female) a hard time & being abusive. I’m not a big guy but I can project what has been described as “a presence” (thank you inner city upbringing) coupled with my ems command voice. They back off.
 

We didn’t sign up for abuse, physical or verbal & there’s no reason to accept it under any circumstances. The attitude of pt’s coupled with the unvaccinated stupidity are the main reasons I’m counting down to my last shift. I’m done & leaving nursing. 

[Susie2310]

6 hours ago, hherrn said:

100% disagree.

While less experienced in the rest of healthcare, I can tell you there is actually an inverse relationship between acuity and violence in the ER. 

This is not about the liver failure patient with hepatic encephalopathy, or dementia, or even the mentally ill.

This is about people who were a**holes prior to admission, and will be a**holes after discharge, despite there being no ICD10 code for this condition.  While there are both environmental and hereditary components to the condition, it is often multigenerational, and can be widespread within a family.

Case in point- this thread is has nothing to do with actual illness.  As many symptoms as are associated with Covid, being an a**hole is not one of them.

For the most part, these are bullies who have been taught that healthcare workers are consequence-free victims.  

 

I agree that there are people who don't behave properly in their everyday lives; who have bad attitudes, etc., for various reasons.  These behaviors can be compounded when the person becomes acutely ill with some of the conditions I mentioned above.  I agree that these patients can present real challenges to those providing their care.  And there are people with chronic or pre-existing medical or psychological conditions who decompensate when they experience acute illness on top of those conditions.  The common denominator is that they are now acutely ill.

Healthcare worker safety is often at risk.  But where patients are unable, due to medical or psychological crises, to behave reasonably, even if they don't behave reasonably at baseline, I don't see how a sign warning them them that violence is not tolerated will help them to behave reasonably.  

I think that there is more value in treating patients and their family members with consideration and respect from the first encounter, something that I often see being overlooked.  I don't disagree that aggression/violence towards health care workers is a problem, but I think that finding solutions requires resources and effort beyond signage.  Health care workers are often part of the problem, as they don't always treat patients/family members with respect and consideration, thus starting the nurse-patient relationship on the wrong foot.  We frequently hear health care workers complaining of patient violence, but we don't hear a lot about health care workers examining their own behavior towards the patient/their family members; their efforts at de-escalation, etc; there is the presumption that the health care workers are doing things right and it is the patients/family members who are not.  The problem is multifactorial, and as I see it, there isn't a simple, easy solution, but I think more training for nurses in de-escalation and treating patients and family members with respect and kindness, and of course, more staff, would help.