Visitors with no common sense!!

SmilingBluEyes · Jun 9, 2002

how bout teen moms whose friends come over to join the "party".....at 3 a.m.??? they run up and down the halls in bare feet yelling and raiding our kitchen for anything they can find to eat or drink! oh boy that is fun.....i always wonder where the parents of the 14 and 15 year old visitors and the expectant moms ARE!!!!! Not at the hospital or caring for these wayward kids! makes me nuts.....but i am going on too much. can ya tell this thread hit a nerve in me yet?

aj1973 · Jun 9, 2002

originally posted by studentnurse_02
i havent started working yet, but at the hospital i will be working at, there are no certain visiting hours except in ccu and icu. so, people can visit any time of the day/night they want!

eeek - please tell me you are joking!!! i have never heard of a hospital that doesn't have visiting hours, and everywhere i've worked it's the opposite way around - icu has open visiting hours for family members, but everywhere else is basically afternoon/evening only. what a nightmare! though i fully agree with you all, there is nothing more frustrating than a room full of visitors when you're trying to work!! i've accidentally-on-purpose stepped on visitors feet, or run over them with iv poles when they just don't get the hint to get the hell out of the way. another thing that bugs the hell out of me is when you've got a young male patient and you can't get rid of the clingy girlfriend who is all over him like a rash in a bay full of other patients, and they just never get the hint that lying in bed with your boyfrined is not really appropriate behaviousr in this situation!!!!

OrthoNutter · Jun 9, 2002

We are supposed to have visiting hours. 12-2pm and 4-8pm. We used to have visiting 10-2pm but we were finding people were showing up at 8am when we were trying to get showers and washes done, not to mention the ward rounds. So we pushed it back to lunch time. So what do the visitors do? They show up whenever the hell they want. I keep subtly hinting to people that they are being a pain in the butt by saying "here's a card with our contact numbers and visiting hours on them". Hmmph! I've had it with being subtle. I'd barely gotten to work at 5am this morning and this lady rocks up wanting to know if it's too early to visit her fourth cousin twice removed. I'd just had enough. I just stared at her and she asked me what the problem was.

I told her I was surprised....that there are some people in the world that would have the NERVE to expect me to go wake a relative up at 5am in the morning. Then, the icing on the cake....

"Well do you mind if I sit and wait here until she wakes up?"

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2002

:(

fedupnurse · Jun 9, 2002

People are clueless. Like I said in another post or two, someone hears someone is in the hospital and the tourists arrive! I had a woman once come up to me and say "Is Mary's father here?" I said Mary who? She said I don't know her last name so I don't know his. I said then you don't know him well enough to visit. This is immediate family only here in the ICU". She left. We try to encourage immediate family only but honestly, we don't have the manpower to police this. I forever have people walking behind closed curtains and asking very detailed questions and they get all huffy when I say "I'm sorry but I am not permitted to give out confidential information to anyone other than the patient or his/her spokesperson. You are not the spokesperson."

I also love when a truckload of them come in even though it is 2 at a time and when you say it is 2 at a time they say "we know". Oh guess you just don't know how to count then. And then the truck load comes out one by one asking the same question they have no right to be asking in the first place. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can spot a person who shouldn't be there in 2 seconds flat. Maybe it's because I've been in an ICU environment for 12 years, but they stick out like a sore thumb and are always the biggest pains in the butt and drainer of our time.

Maybe we should get together and write a book. "How would you like this if you were a patient...A guide to not being a nuisance to someone recovering in a hospital."

Don't even get me started about the idiots that bring babies into the unit. Keep in mind I work nights. What the hell is that six month old doing crawling around a waiting room floor at 10 pm for???????? We don't allow kids under 12 but sometimes bend that rule. Absolutely none under 6 or 7 and they are only allowed in if the unit is relatively free from gross bugs.

pebbles, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2002

.... when we move a pt to a different room, and visitors don't know yet when they come back to visit. They don't see their family member in that bed, so they proceed to look behind the curtains of the other pt's to look for their family member. Even though the nurses desk is close by and they can just go ask... totally rude.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2002

Sorry guys hit the wrong button.

I think that people are just a lot ruder these days - Goodness, I sound like my late Bubbe.

I go to work - admission of a terminal lung ca, endstage - the family trails up - all 15 of them. Four more call the nurse's station, demanding to speak to the Nurse, wanting to ask 100 questions - before the patient arrives to the floor. Then, when you can't answer, they want to speak to the ER nurse and they want step by step instructions to get to the hospital from Timbucktoo, and is there a motel nearby and can they use the guest house - yes, they know it's full for tonight, but it's only 2230 PM and maybe you could like, um talk to those people - because my Grandpa is REALLY SICK, REALLY.

And Grandpa comes up with the 15 relatives and he says that he is not hungry - But everyone of the family members want a free meal, because after all not one of them can leave because Grandpa MUST HAVE THEM ALL THERE. And while you're at it, momma needs a diabetic plate and make sure that there is no red meat on it (makes her constipated) and no fish (gives her gas) - and she needs her blood sugar and BP checked right now. WHAT!!! YOU WON'T DO IT - WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU - WELL, I NEVER!!!!!!!. Oh, by the way there are not enough chairs in here and we want two of the ones that lay flat, not just recline - what, we can only have one. WHHYYYY? But Grandpa's really sick - why (whisper) he might die! Surely you can make an exception JUST THIS ONCE!!! :eek:

Also, why didn't they give us one of the big rooms at the end of the hall - we asked for the big room. Oh, it's on hold. Probably for some Bigshot (said w/derision) - (Just on hold for induction chemo - here for 4-6 weeks). I would think with as sick as grandpa is and that we all have to stay here, he should get the big room. And your family room is out of hot chocalate - little Bobbypoured all 6 packs in the coffee maker and its burning now, could you do something about the smell. Why, little Bobby is 8 - what, he can't be on the floor - But it's his pee-paw (whose WBCs are nonexistant). He'll behave - oh, the chocolate was just an accident -it won't happen again. And can you change pee-paw's linens, Bobbie poured cocola on the bed - where did he get it - Why in the kitchen over there. No, I didn't see the signs saying "For Employees Only" on the door. I didn't see the sign "No Children under 12 Years" posted at every entrance, at every elevator entrance/exit and at door of the unit. I didn't see the sign limiting visitors to two and hours from 1200 to 2030PM. I didn't see the sign saying "No Cell Phone Use" posted everywhere.

But it wouldn't matter to them anyway - because their pee-paw is REAL SICK - and no one else is and they are the exception to all rules.

AND THEY ARE A BUNCH OF RUDE FREAKING MORONS!!!!!!

PS. Peepaw was probably healthier than virtually any other patient on the floor and a wonderful man. He was discharged 3 days later. And I guarantee that after that night (That was about 20 minutes worth - it went on all night), his blood pressure was much better than mine.

LilgirlRN, ADN, RN · Jun 9, 2002

Same thing happens in the ED all the time. Signs are allover the place that say "One visitor per patient", but you look up and there will be 8 people in the room. Many family members get bored, so they stand in the doorway and watch what's going on in other rooms. Or they want to wander around and walk up to the desk and read charts, or ask what is wrong with the patient in room so and so. People will call and ask if Joe Blow is there, no sir they arent here, well I know he was coming there...how many ways can I say that Joe Blow aint here? I used to have a woman call regularaly and ask me what time it was, said her alarm clock broke....I finally said look you need to buy a new alarm clock after the 10th time she called, she threw the phone down in my face! Or people will call and enquire about a family member and want to know all the details of what was wrong with them etc. Of course we can't give out that information, "but you don't understand, she's my daughter" I can't tell who you are over the phone plus the fact that the daughter is 36 years old and may not want Mom to know that she has PID...again!

fedupnurse · Jun 9, 2002

If the executives wouldn't run the place like a friggin hotel things wouldn't be this bad. We have a "service recovery" program. People get movie tickets and such if they get mad about anything. Gee, you'd think the rocket scientists who thought this crap up would then ensure adequate staffing (at the least!) to ensure we would have time to take care of the patients and answer the SPOKESPERSON'S questions. OOOOOPPPPPSSS!! That would make sense! How silly of me!

Call me a rebel but the people who are up our butts the most are the ones with the least sick person on the unit or the one who is terminal and should have been in hospice months ago. I do not go out of my way for these types. They will take a mile if you give an inch. They get the basics. Now the ones with the truly sick family members who sit quietly and don't sight see around the rest of the unit, those people I go way above and beyond for. I get them something to drink maybe some crackers or a sandwhich, spend an inordinate amount of time giving them information about their family members condition and how to get info from the docs, when they should be around to see the docs (particularly the ones who avoid families-I go out and get the people if it isn't visiting hours and I knwo they are in the waiting room-Oh, Dr._______ look who's here. Mr. Smith's wife. She has some questions for you. Wait right here Mrs. Smith and Dr.____ will be right with you." It is worth the daggars I get from these docs to help the handful of wonderful visitors we get. They are getting fewer and fewer all the time.

Glad to know it's not just at my hospital!

toronto rn · Jun 9, 2002

We restrict visitors to immediate family only in the micu, it is amazing how many people give bald faced lies as to their relationship to the patient. Some don't even know how to pronounce the names properly but insist they are relatives.

Unbelievable!!!

labornurse · Jun 9, 2002

I always ask my laboring mom if she would like visitors, who she would and would not like in the room, then proceed to be the pt advocate and make sure her wishes are carried out. If she doesn't want anyone but husband/sig other in the room I put a sign on the door "NO VISITORS! check with nurse." If they disreguard, I am right in after them. I have thrown more mother-in-laws out of laboring rooms than I can count. I can't believe how in considerate in-laws can be. I may get angry remarks and reported to my supervisor by these visitors, but I always get a big smile and thank you from my pts.

nursegoodguy · Jun 9, 2002

Happens a lot in the nursing home too! If the patient has a private room and it doesn't affect them then I don't care how many visitors they have or how long they stay but if it is a shared room then that's another story!