Water Pitchers

[makes needs known]

Hospitals and(or) Health care facilities: Do your patients still recieve water pitchers, with ice and fresh water? If so who delivers them? Nursing or some other department?

[lalopop86]

Yes. At my hospital the CNAs refill them once each shift and prn

[melmarie23, MSN, RN]

LNAs or the RN. Both do it equally I would say.

[glutton4punishment]

yep, we have them, and CNA or nurses refill them

[Jenni811, RN]

Yes of course! it is a patient's right to have access to water.

Only patients that don't have them are patients who are on fluid restriction (they need to put on call light and ask. we don't hold water from them) or if they are NPO.

Usually the CNA's refil them at the end of the shift as needed, but RN's will do it too. Doesn't matter as long as it gets done.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

We have the 32 oz cups with lids and straws. The take home kind. Usually I fill them PRN and on admission. The aides will too but we rarely have aides right now with census low.

[makes needs known]

Interesting. In my facility, in the past the dietary dept. has done it. 3 floors, and on only our floor dietary does not deliver pitchers anymore. Our floor cna's are responsible for giving pitchers to our floor. Dietary still does other floors. We have 40 patients, 3 cna's. There is not enough staff for 1 cna to devote time to filling the pitchers 1 by 1 and then taking them all to deliver to rooms. It would take almost an hour. There are way too many other requests. Passing out snacks, ambulating, toileting, showering, answering bed/chair alarms, obtaining wts., the list goes on and on. We have tried to find out why our floor is different, and the only thing I have heard is that our pts (rehab/sub acute) have more dietary requests and that dietary does not have time or staff to deliver to our floor. If they want water they should ask for it. Our dietary staff has been educated in the fact that some patients may have types of fluid requirements (restricted/thickened) that they need to adhere to. I'm not sure what is going to happen, but we have to find a good way to handle this, because we are all running as fast as we can.

[makes needs known]

oh and for 6 months we did not even have an ice machine on our floor.

[ninjago]

When I was in MS a year ago, we give water pitchers and meal trays. There were no CNAs. Grateful for Unit Secretary who usually helped us when we were really busy.

[LouisVRN, RN]

We pass and fill all the water pitchers and besides meal times are required to obtain snacks as well. The other day, granted we were actually slow, I had to track down a vending machine with Cheetos in it.

[daimere]

I work at an LTC as an aide. On the 4 regular unit, you have to give ice. They are 64 oz jugs that are washed once a week. The people on thickened get 8 oz cups of thickened water. Most of the people on restrictions don't get any. Most water pitcher fillup passes can take about 30 minutes for 50 residents. The longest times was when we'd have to switch out cups and we'd never have enough. Or second shift didn't collect/bring them up (kitchen is closed at 11). The dementia unit does not get pitchers.

I honestly think that passing ice is a waste of time (for 3rd shift). I used to pass marked thickened liquids and they'd be there 3 days later untouched (when you pass, we're told to pick up the old cups). Especially on my old unit, there would be 4-6 people that would use the pitcher (totally give them ice/water). The rest were still full from melted water. One man would tell me, "I don't drink water." I know that 3rd shift on my other unit was the only people that passed ice even though it was supposed to be done by every shift. Honestly how will a person who is a carelift and doesn't move at all reach over to get this water?

[Flo., BSN, RN]

At my job CNAs and RNs fill the pitchers. The CNAs do it when they are changing the sheets and tidying the room in the morning, the RNs as needed. It really dosen't take that long. We have a rolling cart that we put water, coffee, tea and newspapers on and the CNAs take that around if they have time.