Don=........

[bullesh]

Ok so I have a confused resident on my unit T/O for personal alarm no help because resident keeps setting it off because of the confused state(picking apples). Asked an aide to keep an eye on resident impossible because of his workload so I decide to take my work into the room and finish up there. Puhlease papers everywhere because consistently jumping up to prevent the resident from falling. Take the prob to the DON. His response "She has the right to fall". What the..... Oh yeah it is a restraint free facility.:angryfire

[erinp88]

I've worked in facilities that have been cited for having "too many falls" so, I can't believe your DON would say something like that. That's horrible.

Does the resident have an order for an antianxiety (ativan, xanax etc..) medication? Not always my favorite thing to do, but if he is a threat to himself, it may do the trick in calming him down. The other thing I have done (complete pain to do this) is to set the resident right by my medication cart and drag them along with me as I pass meds. I'm all about preventing falls. Falls=6 pages of paperwork in my facility!

[bullesh]

Well I forgot to add that I was off the following day and the resd. did fall ended up in the hospital for a week came back with stitches. And yes, to the Ativan I can't stand doing it but if its going to prevent things like this from happening Darn if I do Darn if don't.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

My following response might be controversial...

If a resident is constantly falling, we put the mattress on the floor. If they continually 'roll' off the mattress onto the padded floor, it is not considered a reportable fall to the facility or to the state. Also, I will readily use chemical restraints to keep these types of patients safe. Sorry, but I absolutely do not want to deal with a patient who has fractured his arm or busted his skull open. I also like to avoid incident reports as much as possible.

[nckdl]

Yes I have had my Don tell us that they have a "right to fall" and also been told after we expressed concern that we were short staffed and we had a 1:1 resident that kept getting up to walk unassisted that "well then let her get up and walk, get her a walker":eek: oh and we do have the resident on xanax which is doing not one bit of good. People have no common sense sometimes.

[txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN]

well unfortunately the state will tell you the same thing. it is a bunch of bunk. we just had our full book, they left on friday .. we got a tag for to many falls . but at the same time they will rip through your restraints if you have any and demand restraint reduction. the last place i work the state made the don remove the side rails or get a tag for physical restraints . so they did the patient fell out of bed that night broke her hip and eventually died. you cant win this game ..they have a right to fall..you have to many falls ...reduce your restraints.. ltc cant with the state. what burns my a$$ is a lot of the sate surveyors are not even ltc nurses and have no clue what they are talking about..

[erinp88]

well unfortunately the state will tell you the same thing. it is a bunch of bunk. we just had our full book, they left on friday .. we got a tag for to many falls . but at the same time they will rip through your restraints if you have any and demand restraint reduction. the last place i work the state made the don remove the side rails or get a tag for physical restraints . so they did the patient fell out of bed that night broke her hip and eventually died. you cant win this game ..they have a right to fall..you have to many falls ...reduce your restraints.. ltc cant with the state. what burns my a$$ is a lot of the sate surveyors are not even ltc nurses and have no clue what they are talking about..

yes! it's almost like they always have to find something. i think the bottom line is that the staffing is so poor in these long term care facilities. we have people that don't provide direct patient care every day making decisions on what staffing ratios are correct.