Enemas in the ER

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I just have to ask how many ER's still do enemas in the ER for constipation? We are a small hospital but we have one doctor who orders KUB's (Abd series) on every patient with a tummy ache and always orders enemas till clear.. If theres a shadow on the xray then he or she is constipated. This really ties up a room for a while. Just curious.

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We do.

Milk and molasses.

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Specializes in M/S/Tele, Home Health, Gen ICU.

Enemas are ordered in the ER, however because of privacy issues they are done wherever a free bed exists in the hospital, usually on an inpatient floor, tying up nurses and beds. it is a problem in aour small community hospital, especially since it interferes with ratios here in California. The last ER enema patien twe did on the M/S/T floor took 6 hours and took up most of an RN and a CNAs time.

Celia

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Specializes in MSP, Informatics.

Heck, we admit people for consitipation... or the wonderful diagnosis that shows up on the census sheet.... FOS (Full of Sh--!)

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Specializes in Home Health Care.

My only ER experience in nursing school, was enema's! I'm not kiding one bit. It was a real crappy rotation for me... No wonder I wanted nothing to do with ER.

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Specializes in Surgery, Tele, OB, Peds,ED-True Float RN.

yep... enemas and lactulose!

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Specializes in OB, ER.

We actually don't do them very often. Occasionally we do and use Enemeez which are not bad to do at all, beats soap suds. Most doctors however feel it's not an ER procedure. Either they are admited, go back to the nursing home with an order for them to do it, or go home with the directions to drink mag citrate.

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Specializes in Trauma/ED.

We try to talk the docs into ordering soap suds enema's because then we can have the tech's do it...LOL!

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Specializes in ER.

Ughhhhhh! We don't do them in my ER either. We send em home with a bottle of mag citrate.

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Specializes in ED.

It's actually against our policy for us to do enemas in our ER...and that's just fine with me! :wink2: Funny thing is, it seems like EVERY pt I get poops anyway...and usually more than once :)

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We try to talk the docs into ordering soap suds enema's because then we can have the tech's do it...LOL!

I bet your techs just love coming to work...

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Every now and then we'll do a Fleet's or a soap suds enema on a pt., but more often than not, it's half now, half later of a bottle of mag citrate ("The Sparkling Laxative!" :D) and buh-byes!

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