Hi there, I have to bring up an incident that happend last night on my shift. I have this patient who was newly diagnosed with stage 4 cancer w mets to brain. Patient went from being independent to complete care within a matter of days. Patient did not tell family about her cancer so the family was distraught when they heard. Anyways, right when I got on shift, daughter was screaming for help to help her mother because she was vomiting. I addressed her concern and called doc for new orders. Told daughter ill be right in when I receive complete report on patients. Gave pt meds and daughter apologized for being so out of hand. A few hours later she comes storming out of the room saying no one is helping her mother and she vomited. In my head im thinking ok she JUST vomited a second ago, second of all you did not ring the call bell so how are we supposed to know your mom is vomiting? Third off, if your mother is needing this much attention while your sitting in the chair next to her, completely capable of helping her then maybe you should help. So then she whipped out her camera phone and started to video record what was going on by putting the camera in her mothers face saying "this is how they left my mother! No one is helping her" she then points the video at me and the aides and says "look what they are doing, they arent even helping and this is what the nurse is doing". I had the aides clean her up right away. Explained to her we are working as fast as we can.
so One of my co workers called security and i did not know that there was such a policy regarding video recording or pictures being taken. Security came up and explained to her the reason behind the issues of privacy and security asked her to delete the video. She refused to delete it so security told me they need to call the police. So they arrived and in the end she cooperated and deleted the video. I told nurse supervisor and she spoke with daughter and told her she wanted a diff nurse (which shocked me cuz she was so nice to my face and so thankful for my actions early in my shift and i asked if she needed anything to call for me, so my conclusion is she is mad that it got taken to the point where police were involved and she probably didnt like someone young telling her what to do). I switched patient with another co worker.
I needed to vent because I kind of feel violated. I did my very best to reassure the daughter that if she needed me to let me know and the fact that everything i did do for her mother is now disregarded. It was so inappropriate for her to invade my privacy and act so irrational. Is there something I could have done better? How would you have handled it?
Video taping/photos are never allowed in pt care areas in any facility I've ever worked at. Security should always be notified.
Do you have palliative care teams at the hospital? I would get them involved in her care as well
unfortunately my facility lets the family video tape. I was near to tears after caring for the family from ...one day. They had fired or made every nurse cry and got in ones face. Then I get stuck and the daughter whips out the camera when I was going to take out the PICC for discharge. I politely excused myself and almost bawled on the charge. While house was researching policy my sweet unflappable charge took the line out. She tried to videotape it and she told her to stop and she did. She did take pictures of the process and everything in the room it was horrible but the next day we found out it was legal. I think it's BS. NOWHERE did I say it's ok to use me in your video. Next thing it's on Facebook. I figure they were angling for a lawsuit.
Actually it is not legal and trust me when I say if it was we would have no nurses to take care of any patients. I have had families write everything down. Nurse did this at this time etc. That is ok from their view just make sure you do this in a timely manner. This you can not stop. Pictures of Patient care of any kind is a HIPPA violation,your violation and the hospital violation. Now they can take any pictures they want of the family visiting, patient,party and even the Nurse and patient and whatever. My Boss did this when his mother was dying of CA. She was AAO and had many beautiful pictures made while in the hospital. They loved all of their Nurses. None after she got bad. I have several as he is also a good friend...I hope no one ever allows a family to take pictures of them while doing any patient care of any kind. You would be setting yourself up for trouble down the line. I also hope a Hospital never tells you that it is "with in their right" to do this because it would be the last time I would ever take care of that person.. After hearing this from this Nurse I would be very interested in seeing if there were other Hospitals that would say it is legal to do......I know I would never allow it...
I have only been "fired" twice by families (always by families, never by the patients), and I can tell you that both times it was an absolute blessing. I have learned to take being fired as a great privilege. I have NEVER dealt with a family who fired someone else who were decent human beings. If they've fired a nurse before, they're almost always irrational, crazy, manipulative, demanding, or all of the above - take your pick, and you're the lucky one if you're the one that got fired.
I don't see how videotaping patient care could be legal anywhere, especially in this situation where it sounds like the patient was likely not in her right mind. Everyone has the right to privacy, and you have to be in your right mind to sign a consent form to be videotaped in the hospital. No signed consent form from the patient in the chart = no videotaping on my shift, period, whether the facility I'm working for has a policy on videotaping or not. It is so disrespectful to the patient I have real trouble not getting angry when I see these people videotaping a helpless patient who can't tell them to stop.
Steffy44
98 Posts
unfortunately my facility lets the family video tape. I was near to tears after caring for the family from ...one day. They had fired or made every nurse cry and got in ones face. Then I get stuck and the daughter whips out the camera when I was going to take out the PICC for discharge. I politely excused myself and almost bawled on the charge. While house was researching policy my sweet unflappable charge took the line out. She tried to videotape it and she told her to stop and she did. She did take pictures of the process and everything in the room it was horrible but the next day we found out it was legal. I think it's BS. NOWHERE did I say it's ok to use me in your video. Next thing it's on Facebook. I figure they were angling for a lawsuit.