Families who turn on you.

[Jo Dirt]

Recently a private duty case I used to work ended when, after the patient went into the hospital for a couple of days, the agency refused to accept her back again as a patient after her discharge because of the liability. The agency kept the patient for about 10 months, and it was a difficult patient when they accepted the case but over the time the agency had this patient she declined to the point that not one but several nurses had hurt themselves lifting and caring for her. This patient is not only difficult because she is heavy and requires maximum assist with all aspects of care now (even with a lift it was incredibly difficult), but she is an alzheimer's patient and is very confused, which adds to the difficulty. No one wanted to work the case so there were just a few nurses who got stuck with it (I was one of them.) In spite of all our complaining and documentation they kept this woman until they had to send a travel nurse in one night who raised the roof about how she couldn't believe the agency kept sending us to this woman's house. We had told them and told them she needed to go to a nursing home. I guess they finally listened.

During the time we cared for this patient, the family of this woman (she has 8 children and an army of grandchildren) were very insistent that "mama will never go to a nursing home". At the same time they would run in and out of the house to check on "mama" but would never help out in any way, and in fact would insist that we "make mama walk, it will be good for her." "Mama walking" was actually the nurse dragging her across the floor, hoping our guts didn't bust out before we could get her back to the chair. There were a couple of daughters who expected they could take mama riding the roads all afternoon and the nurses should be expected to lift and pull mama in and out of the car and push her around the Dollar Store and Wal Mart all day.

The family claimed they loved the nurses and were so grateful, I guess that is why they called the state to complain about us and now we have the state coming to investigate the agency and nurses. They are going to try to sue us, but this is pretty laughable because they really don't have anything to sue for, except that the agency would not take the case, and the only other agency that would accept the case will only send CNA's out so now the family has to come by three times a day to give "mama" her shots and meds. and they are fuming.

Has anyone else had experience with a family turning on them?

[Spritenurse1210, BSN, RN]

:beer: well sounds like a big fine mess you have there. I don't know what to say except that i understand your delima and i empathise with you!

[taracna]

I did have something similar happen to me. I was taking care of a patient who had diarrhea and sometimes didn't make it to the bedside commode. I did 4 complete bed changes on her through the night. I was very polite and empathized with her situation. Both the patient and the daughter said i was great and how wonderful someone nice was taking care of "Mama". Well i'd gotten Mama to the bedside commode again when a Code Blue was called i left the room to run to the Code. I came back an hour later and the patient and daughter were furious at me. They told the Nursing Supervisor that I hadn't emptied the commode all night and only changed the sheets once and Mama had to sleep in soiled linens. I was never so mad:angryfire . Thankfully my nurse had seen everything i'd done and could help back me up.