Do You take your patients out for smoke breaks?

ns lpn · Nov 25, 2006

Staff at my facility are not allowed to, if the resident can not do it then it's up to the family and for the most part that seems to appease all the workers ...not so much the residents involved.

Laught3r · Nov 25, 2006

I used to work for a facility that allowed Docs to write Rx for pts to go outside and smoke. These pts would need to be put into wheelchairs wrapped up and then taken down the elevator five stories and around to the back of the building. Just getting them out of bed, to the smoke area, and back in bed not including the time it actually took to smode was 30 min.

I hated it because the smoking staff was always the ones who would take them out to smoke. Then they would come back inside and say I'm going on my break now. I was an aide then and it just seemed to me that it made more work for everyone. If a nurse took the pt out to smoke then the nurses left on the floor had more work while that nurse on had one pt. The same if the aide took them out to smoke. I think that it should never be a policy that staff take pts out to smoke.

shodobe · Nov 25, 2006

The only patients that are allowed to go out and smoke are the ambulatory ones who can get around on their own. Patients also have to sign a waiver of responsibility to do so. Patients that are bedridden are told they can not go out to smoke even if they can get up in a wheelchair because nurses can not go out to babysit them. They are given a patch and if it works fine , if not too bad. We had an older patient years ago go out to smoke and fell striking her head. I came in and did a cranie and she finally died a few days later. This was after constant requests by staff and her surgeon NOT to go out to smoke. Luclkily this was documented several times so the family could do nothing about it. My hospital does not tolerate patients who smoke, even outside, but cover themselves by constant documentation and having the patients sign the waiver, thus eliminating hospital liability. The lawyers state this is very legal and binding.

PPHawk · Nov 25, 2006

We have employees who smoke and they will take residents outside which also gives them an extra smoke break. I'm fine with that, but I will not take anyone out to that area. I quit 16 years ago and I can tell you that I really hate the smell out there. I don't even like it when the employee comes back inside...smokers aren't able to smell the 'dirty ashtray' odor that follows them. I don't appreciate walking into a store that has people clustered at the door, smoking.

Quite honestly, I wish there was no public smoking. But having been addicted to them, I don't want to be mean to others either. As long as no one expects me to go out there, I'll keep quiet.

banditrn · Nov 25, 2006

I currently work in LTC - the facility that I just left was small, and none of the residents smoked, so it wasn't an issue.

At the one where I just started, no, I won't - I don't smoke, the smell gags me - but for the couple that do, I'll try to find someone else that will. They have a smoking porch off the lobby.

elizabeth321 · Dec 30, 2006

Smoking is not allowed anywhere on our property...not by staff or patients...they are offered the patch.

I am thrilled about it.

Liz

ginger58, ASN, RN · Dec 30, 2006

Cars and pesticides are a danger to the human race. Mobile phones and electrical pylons do not have a link to cancer. You get more radiation from the sun!
The patients are adults, but for the present they are in a HEALTH care facility! If you really cared about their health you wouldn't be taking them out. As a patient in my hospital bed you wouldn't be available to me and you'd come back smelling like an ash tray.
Smoking is a personal right but not a legal right in the US.. The right to smoke has never been upheld in a court of law. And if you are hired by a company that doesn't allow smoking and you do you can legally be fired.:angryfire

russ11 · Jan 6, 2007

I do not. Now I work in an ER in a smoke free facility. But I didn't take them out to smoke even before the ban. It is a huge liability/safety issue for staff and patients. We have had staff members assaulted in our department by MH and other patients. Last year a 72 year old man (cute little grampy with alzheimers) nearly strangled a staff member who was in a charting room that was in the back of the departmant... she was saved when he knocked over a chair and a tech heard the ruckus. I certainly would not go outside into the parking lot...after all patients are basically strangers, some more than others.

Legally I would be very surprised if the hospital could make you do it as part of a care plan.... And as for "it calms them down" what if they had rather have a beer??? They are both legal addictions...

Years ago in a VA hospital on a long term unit we occassionally provided patients with alcohol which I thought was odd as so many were alcoholic but the doctors actually wrote orders for " 1 beer @ bedtime"

Now I might be more tempted to take them out for a margarita and some chips and salsa.

chibear55 · Jan 6, 2007

yes we take patients to smoke outside.

arizonanurse · Jan 15, 2007

Ambulatory patients can take themselves out, otherwise no. If a patient needs help getting into a wheelchair but can take himself out, I'll help him into it if I have time, but it's pretty low on my priority list.

SmilingBluEyes · Jan 16, 2007

at my one hospital, the campus went all non-smoking, so it's not going to be an issue there anymore.

recoyle3 · Jan 18, 2007

I do because I smoke. I know its bad for you!!! Some pt's have been smoking all their lives Should we take yet another thing away from them?Yes I know (for thier own good!) We all have our vices.