Just a question...I was wondering how many of you work at a hospital that actually does not allow visitors in after visiting hours is over?? I mean do they lock the doors, turn off pt phones, only way in is the ED entrance...Anything like that???
I'm asking because my hospital DOES NOT lock down in anyway....visitors come and go through out the night!! Doesn't matter if it is 2am or 2pm...No one stops them at the front entrance.
It is so creepy to be sitting at your desk charting and get that creepy feeling and turn around to see 5 people standing there "we come to see "mama"!!! (usuallly drunk and disruptive, loud and intrusive.....the usual:( )
One time a person put there finger in a nurses back that was charting and said..>"you know I could shoot you if I wanted to; it would be easy"!!!!!! Bad thing is that he is right!!
I work at a level one trauma center with many attempted murders, gang violence, etc.....
Just the other night I had to have a visitor physically removed from my floor and hospital b/c of the threatening behaivor and verbal abuse. Although he was told not to come back that night there would be no way to have stopped him.
It is scary to think that you could be in danger at work from the visitors.....the adminstrators are more concerned with being "community friendly" than maintaining the physical safety of their staff!!!
I work in London, and our hospital is wide open night and day. the doors are literally just open and anyone can get in at anytime. Our cars are frequently broken into and the security are hopeless. Last month I had to call them 6 times due to a disturbance outside ICU but they just stood there and didn't do anything. Not even the police bothered to do anything. My patients had to put up with yelling and screaming all night. Two guys even kicked open the door to my department. I felt really vulnerable. I wonder why they have security because they are next to useless and have no powers. They are not allowed to touch anyone anyway. They know the cars are broken into but they don't have cameras or lights or even bother to patrol there.
In my last hospital, a guy walked into the building and shot a patient dead as he sat on the phone. They installed cameras after that but nobody would actually sit and look at the monitors so it was pointless. You can still get into that hospital easily in the middle of the night. Once, a relative was so angry at the treatment of his relative who was a patient, that he drove his car INTO the hospital and up the corridor, taking the doors off with his car. You could still see the tire tracks a month later. Thank god there was no-one walking up that corridor at the time.
Specializes in Interventional Pain Mgmt NP; Prior ICU and L/D RN.
Hey there guys...I need your help again...my facility is finally having a meeting about ???possibly looking into the locking down issue.....
here is the thing...I need some more ammunition....anymore examples, situations, etc. that you all may have I need!! It may just help push the hospital I work at to OPEN THEIR DANG EYES and see that they need to do something...and that other hospitals do try to protect their employees....
THANKS A BUNCH.....I KNOW YOU GUYS WILL COME THROUGH FOR ME!!!
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Our unarmed security "force" consists of one gentleman who's 70 if he's a day, another one who looks all of 12, and an enormously fat kid whose only hope of stopping someone would be to fall on them! Not exactly imposing figures, to say the least. We do lock the doors from 8 PM until 5 AM, but people can always come in through the ER and often there's no one at the security desk, so we don't feel particularly "protected". The only reason we even have this much security is an incident which occurred in the mid-1990s when I was working there as a CNA; I know, because I was one of the staff members who were threatened when this guy, distraught over a restraining order barring him from seeing his newborn son, came up to the OB floor where I was working and told me he was going to shoot us staff members, one by one, if we didn't let him see the baby. Luckily for all of us, he didn't have the gun with him at the time, and when he returned an hour later with it the police were right there to intercept him.
So now we have these so-called "visiting hours" that end at 8 PM (why is it that people always seem to think that means everyone has to leave except THEM?) and security guards who couldn't catch a cold. Yep, sure makes me feel safe, especially when I walk out to my car at midnight and there's a bunch of whackos hanging around the ER entrance and NO security can be seen anywhere in the vicinity.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
All doors locked at 8 p.m. except a controlled method of entry to
ER; they have to be let in at that point unless in ambulance. The floors are called by security after-hours to see if visitors are allowed up. OB has liberal visiting hours but at least there IS the attempt to keep us secure. Still more needs to be done. I think al our elevators need to be locked and only used by personnel with scanning badges to move them. In OB, the only way they can get up to is the one set of elevators; all other doors are locked up tight, with firealarms on each of they are disturbed.
We have badges to get in side entrances, the main entrance open to 9p, then all must go through ED. We get calls from secuity in ED after 9p asking if it is okay for so and so to come up and visit someone. The patient comes up with a yellow sticker with their name and the name of the pt they are visiting. Most of this started after 911.
At a hospital my dad was at no one is allowed on mother/baby unless their name is on a list, there was a security guard there 24/7.
Specializes in Interventional Pain Mgmt NP; Prior ICU and L/D RN.
A BIG THANKS TO THOSE WHO HAVE RESPONDED!! HOW I HOPE SOMETHING GETS ACCOMPLISHED...but you know how it is.....a wait and see game...(probably faster to watch molasses run up-hill!)..
Rocknurse, MSN, APRN, NP
1,367 Posts
I work in London, and our hospital is wide open night and day. the doors are literally just open and anyone can get in at anytime. Our cars are frequently broken into and the security are hopeless. Last month I had to call them 6 times due to a disturbance outside ICU but they just stood there and didn't do anything. Not even the police bothered to do anything. My patients had to put up with yelling and screaming all night. Two guys even kicked open the door to my department. I felt really vulnerable. I wonder why they have security because they are next to useless and have no powers. They are not allowed to touch anyone anyway. They know the cars are broken into but they don't have cameras or lights or even bother to patrol there.
In my last hospital, a guy walked into the building and shot a patient dead as he sat on the phone. They installed cameras after that but nobody would actually sit and look at the monitors so it was pointless. You can still get into that hospital easily in the middle of the night. Once, a relative was so angry at the treatment of his relative who was a patient, that he drove his car INTO the hospital and up the corridor, taking the doors off with his car. You could still see the tire tracks a month later. Thank god there was no-one walking up that corridor at the time.