Do YOU answer call lights in a hospital?

[JHansen]

I'm curious, at my hospital only one in every five nurses I would say answers call lights, and one in particular will stand, literally stand, infront of their patients room waiting for a CNA to walk around the corner wondering why the call light is still going off. She will then point at the light then at the CNA and ask them what took them so long.

I asked her one day why she feels the need to do this rather than answer her own patients call lights. "Not my job to do the CNA's.":eek:

So I ask this community: Do YOU answer call lights when they go off or wait as long as possible before the noise makes you go see whats up?

I used to be a CNA so you can be damn sure I answer them unless I am busy with another pt at the moment. CNA's are underpaid and over worked and thats the truth.

[loriangel14, RN]

You will find that a positive attitude like yours will do wonders for your workplace. I work in a small hospital and our charge nurse, if she is not busy at the desk, is on the floor pitching in. She too will not walk by a room that has a bell ringing. Many times she will find a nurse to let them know she toileted one of their pts and quite often checks the shower list so she can help by showering someone. The nurses adore her and makes us a cohesive team.

Keep smiling Pixie.You sound like you are a great nurse.

[suni, BSN, RN]

Patient care is everyones responsibilty, I answer call bells and most of the nurses I work with do also.

[woknblues]

Hello All:

When I worked in a VA (as a civilian) I answered any and all call lights that were on, even if that patient wasn't assigned to me.

I also went around to the patients who weren't NPO (and that includes the staff, MD's etc) and made a list of who wanted tea and I made the tea. Also, during the last bit of rounds (I worked evenings) I would ask my patients if they wanted an "old fashioned back rub". About 60% said "yes".

Would you believe that the next shift on (night shift) would "rag" on me about my "odd habit" of giving out tea and back rubs. Why were a few upset with me? Because the patients would then ask them for a back rub or a cuppa.

I was always amazed when they would go on and on about how I was spoiling the patients, making their job "harder", how they didn't have the time to do all that "fluff and nonsense" blah, blah, blah....Sigh.... I tired to explain that it was just basic bedside nursing but my words went in and out

I know times have changed. But I am sure once in a blue moon those few RNs that I write of could find an extra 10 minutes to give a few rubs with lotion to some person's back. What a grand way to check out their skin integrity, or talk to the patient about their procedure, day, pain level etc...

And on that heavy med-surg floor we often had only ONE CNA!

Hey, when I was a newbie in the ICU (had just graduated from nursing school) who do you think taught me about critical care nursing? The nursing assistants who had worked in that hospital longer than I was alive. I am who I am because of the nuturing I received from the staff in that ICU: the RNs and CNAs.

athena

I just wrote these words to express what I see in your post. I hope it comes out right.

Wow. You are practicing the art of nursing. You are HEALING. Plain and simple. This is a lost art. Putting it into today's crude perspective, you are doing "preventative interventions". I hope everyone who read your words understands the time in the world that you have returned to us. Like a ripple in a lake, the "butterfly effect" if you will, that 10 minutes you spent doing that probably reduced the time spent putting out the fires of neglect, surgical/traumatic pain, the shame of being ill or weak, the vulnerability that can hinder a person to heal. That 10 minutes, saved thousands of hours down the line, from the hours that patient spent in pain, to the hours they spent driving to the pharmacy for more meds, to the hours the doctors spent reassessing a nagging old injury, to the families spent trying to return to normalcy instead of rehashing the fear that they have felt, the indecision, the lack of faith.... You are returning life to this world. I sure hope you are in a mentors role, or the world has lost a great opportunity to have more like you. I hope one day to be able to follow in YOUR footsteps. I want to be a healer. Thanks for the inspiration.

[smalltownnurse2506]

I have to answer call lights. I work in a 4 bed ICU with only two nurses on at a time. We have no CNA.

[imanedrn]

i wish that an aide or an assistant would try to give me a verbal asskicking!

assistants..know your place!

PLEASE be joking...

[ilstu99]

Some of the attitudes and working conditions I read about here make me very happy and totally blessed to have the position I have.

In our hospital, it's not unusual to see anyone and everyone jump in to help where they can. I've watched our CEO give directions on his lunch hour, our V-P of Nursing help an elderly woman with her bags, our MD's wipe behinds....

I've rarely seen someone walk past someone who is clearly in need, and those have been few and far between. Even then, it may have just been an "in my own world" issue, rather than attitude. My DON keeps scrubs in her filing cabinet for the "just in case" times.

It inspires me to work to my potential, and I can honestly say that it wins the facility a lot of loyalty as well. Overall, it shows me how important my job is, and that no one looks "down" on another just because of their employment position.

Anyway. Yes, I answer whatever alarm needs answering.

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

i wish that an aide or an assistant would try to give me a verbal asskicking!

assistants..know your place!

Since you've only survived your first year, I'm going to tell you a story...

Luckily, none of the techs I work with "know their place". This means that when my tech went into one of my patient rooms (where I had just been fifteen minutes before) to get VS, and noted something not quite right, she felt totally comfortable coming up to me and saying, "Mama_D, Mrs. Jones is having an acute CVA. Get your butt in here NOW and help me!" Ended up that in that fifteen minutes, pt had gone from A&O x3 w/clear speech and able to move all extremities to A&Ox1, weak on the left side, with slurred speech. We ended up getting her to CT w/in ten minutes, w/in 30 minutes we had results and had started interventions.

Because our assistants don't have a "place" to belong to, other than as a valued and vital part of our team, we as nurses have no problems educating them, answering questions, and getting along well. Therefore, the tech knew exactly what was going on, didn't hesititate to use language strong enough to let me know there was an emergency, and was able to jump in as an educated, indispensible part of our care team to get the best patient outcome available. It also means that when I tell them directly or forcefully to do something, instead of politely requesting with a "please", they know it's because somethings up and it needs to be done NOW.

If your attitude truly is that assistants have a "place" to belong to, and that it is below yours, in the long run it's only going to cause harm to you and your patients. Take it from someone who's been around for a lot longer than you. Unless you treat your techs/aides with respect and as a valued member of your care team, they are not going to treat you with respect.

[withasmilelpn]

In LTC it is difficult to get your work done and do patient care as well. Which is why when I answer bells, I will often only do those tasks that don't require large blocks of time. I just don't have the time, my med pass takes hours as it is. I don't feel as if it was a good day unless I've done some patient care, you can be so removed sometimes and rushed. At the same time I've seen alot of CNAs walk by bells, because "they were just there, they 've already been there 8 times, it's not my room, walk away muttering the nurses don't do anything but pass pills, ignoring me or saying a'they have to wait" and go up to the desk and kevtch about how lazy the nurses are. THESE are the people I have no problem tracking down each and everytime their patient wants them. To the wonderful CNAs that shoo me out when I start to toilet their patient, saying go "do your work", I will always be there for you!

[ToxicShock]

I am not a nurse yet, but I would absolutely answer call lights if I wasn't engaged in something else. Even if it was a call for something silly (like handing them their glass of water right next to the bed..), it's part of the job, and what I went to school to do. :)

[Nursebarebari]

yes, i am an rn and i answer call lights and i think every staff member including the nm, don, and doctors should. as for cna being over worked and underpaid, i feel i am over worked and underpaid too for all the work i do and the bs i have to put up with.

[icunurse42066]

In LTC it is different; the staff is mostly made of CNAs, 2 to a hall (usually) with a LPN or RN over 2 halls, so those nurses are responsible for 50 patients EACH. If I'm in the middle of an insulin or medication pass and the hall starts looking like a Christmas tree and those call lights are not getting tended to, you bet I'm going to make it my business to find out where my CNAs are at, especially if there's been a lot of socializing at the front desk or out back in the smoking area. Some residents require a full 20 minutes to toilet, and during a heavy med or insulin pass, uh-uh. The CNAs are going to have to bust their buns getting those lights while I'm busting my buns getting those meds and insulins passed. To say nothing of what happens during the train wreck that is a LTC admission.

To be sure, most of them really do the best they can. I'm more inclined to be helpful to these aides, especially when their teammates have let them down by not showing up. But the ones you have to chase around are useless, and in the time you spent chasing them down, you might as well have done it yourself, and been further along with your own work.

I understand that LTC is different, but this episode was not in LTC, it was in acute care, we only had the 1 CNA, and she was busy taking care of other pt's. My issue was with the 2 nurses that walked right past the room with the BR light going off THREE TIMES just to get the CNA to get the pt out of the BR!!!!!!! FYI, the CNA was busy cleaning up an incontinent pt at the time, so she was NOT hiding out.

[daydreamgapeach]

I am an LPN of 15 years. I have seen nurses who will wait for the CNA to answer the call light. I think that's pretty sorry. If the nurse is not busy, she is just as responsible for answering the lights. There are many nurses on the floor vs. CNAs on the floor. I don't believe in doing their work for them, but by all means, help. they are our patients too. This also brings up another interesting question. What if the patient is not yours? Will you help them with their needs? I hope so. this is called team work. i used to be a CNA and I can remember the nurse looking all over the floor to tell me my patient needed a bedpan, when she could've put the pt on the bedpan herself:banghead: and then told me to check on the pt when I ws finished. I was in another room with another patient. Need I say, by the time I got there, guess what? Yep, the patient peed in the bed. Anyway, I could go on? Can we say team work?