I know this sounds negative but bear with me. I'm also venting.
Nowadays, as all of us know, the family's and pt's happiness/"satisfaction"/whatever is a key focus of hospital adminstration. In many places, "ensuring a happy 'client'"-and therefore a positive PG survey- trumps everything else. While maybe a small percentage of complaints are valid, many are not. And nursing seems to have a big bullseye on its back the ____ hits the fan.
The latest trend at my place is this: a family/pt has a "complaint"...and rather than try to resolve it with the appropriate chain of command...they simply demand that the nurse be banned from caring for them ever again. And bc, like I said, of this overwhelming desire to please anyone and everyone, managment backs this up. 9 times out of 10, in my experience, the complaint is something silly like: ice water wasnt brought fast enough, call light rang 2 seconds long than it should have, etc.
I work in the ICU and sometimes when one of these unreasonable demands to jockey assignments comes around, it isnt as easy as it sounds. The charge nurse has to take into account the new nurse's proximity to their other pt (one cant tell the nurses to trade assignments, and have the other half of the assignment clear across the unit) + the stability/difficulty of the other pts, + the skill level of the new nurse (if there are a bunch of machines which he/she isnt qualified to operate). Having been the charge nurse when an issue like this arose, let me say it can be a headache.
All of the staff nurses in my unit find this whole thing ridiculous and laughable. Sometimes we joke about it. "Hey has Bed A's family fired you yet? I got fired last week bc I left them on hold too long on the phone." Stuff like that. In some extreme cases, families have fired multiple nurses, leaving us to wonder if ANYONE would be left to care for their loved one in our unit.
Specific examples of things ppl have been "fired" for in my unit include: a pt calling his wife, even though she wanted him to call her (no joke-she had psych issues); ice water coming too late; not having ice water/chips despite strict NPO orders; apple juice too cold; room temperature too hot/too cold; pt fell out of bed despite restraints and all side rails up (pt not injured in any way); nurse not reading the results of a CT scan to the family (hello, HIPAA); family angry that the doctor hasnt spoken to/updated them, and nurse refusing to call the doc at 2 AM for this reason.
It was a sad day when suddenly families/pts were allowed to dictate daily assignments. Maybe ppl have watch Donald Trump too much on tv...YOU'RE FIRED!
