Visiting Hours on Hospital Floors

mattsmom81 · May 28, 2002

Now that's my idea of a GREAT CVICU...LOVE your visiting hours!

whipping girl in 07, RN · May 29, 2002

I work in a mixed ICU and we have visiting hours at 9 am, and 1, 5, and 9 pm for 30 minutes, 2 visitors at a time, no one under 14 allowed. If we know someone is going to surgery, we let the immediate family in beforehand, and we let them in after the surgery if it's going to be awhile before visiting hours. If we have someone who is probably dying, we let the immediate family stay, a couple at a time, until the end is very near, then we let in most everyone who wants to come in. The nurse always has the right to kick people out, and even in my limited experience, I've been known to be the bad guy. I've even told patients that look a little uncomfortable that if they don't want visitors, I'll go out and talk to the family/visitors and be the bad guy, never letting them know that it's the PATIENT, not me, who doesn't want them there. I don't care if they do later call me that "b*tch in ICU who wouldn't let us in."

Now the floors at our hospital are a different story; it's supposed to be 8 am to 8 pm (I think) but you see people all the time, dragging their toddlers in, letting them sit and play on the floor, etc. Now I don't even like to get down on the floor in that place, and there's no way in hell I'd let my kid PLAY on it. YUCK. I got pulled to post-op a couple of weeks ago, and we had a MRSA positive patient with a room full of family, including 3 kids, 2 of which were under 5, crowded in there, eating, playing, etc. I was thoroughly disgusted, but apparently it was their habit. This was the same patient whose daughter called the desk at exactly 9 pm, telling me it was time for her father's dressing change. When the nurse who answered the bell told her she'd let the nurse know, the patient and daughter started berating her for giving them an attitude! (I heard the whole thing and there was nothing that could even be mistaken for attitude on the nurse's part; the patient and family, however, were another story.) Incidentally, he got his dressing change at 11 pm, when I got around to it!

My son is 5 and has been begging to see where I work, but I'm not letting him up there. He's been in the hospital main lobby and the cafeteria, and that's all he'll ever see of it until he's 14 unless, God forbid, something happens to me or his dad or his grandparents.