welcome to the hilton...please dont forget to tip your waitress

Nurses General Nursing

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LasVegasRN

835 Posts

Rhona - I agree with your post 100% AND I have witnessed some of the nastiest behavior from nurses "caring" for obese clients. All too often I've seen people assume that these clients are lazy and have no regard for themselves or others. Whether you care to admit it or not, it shows in the way you talk to and handle that patient. It's something we all need to be very aware of and I know and can admit that I have been guilty of it in the past. They are people just like EVERYONE else. They have a problem like everyone else - unless you have absolutely no problems you can speak of whatsoever. If you're a smoker you can certainly SMOKE yourself to death. What's the difference? Be aware. This is your patient, for God's sake.

Brownms46

1 Article; 2,394 Posts

Specializes in Everything except surgery.

NO one should have to be encouraged to do for themselves...if they were perfectly capable to doing so...and are in their right mind! Being OBESE does not equal illness inability to move ...or wipe your butt..or take your butt to the bathroom..or call for a bedpad!

Rehab starts at the door...and if sitting there in a pile of poop doesn't movitate you..a nurse telling you to get off you behind and do what is necessary shouldn't either! Any nurse who encourges her pt to do less than they are able to do for themselvs...has done that pt NO favors!! In fact you have enabled this person to not progress...but degress!! If that is your idea of being a good nurse...you want to re think that! Lord help me to bite my tongue...Pleezzzzze!:(

I'm glad the nurses who cared for me...forced me to get my butt out of bed afer having a piece taken out of my hip...and when I refused a IPPB TX...they came right to my bed...and let me know...I was WRONG! Anytime you think you're helping by allowing a pt...to lie in that bed...and not give them a reality check...I would have to wonder who are your helping??? You definitely NOT helping the pt! Even Jesus Christ got pissed....Plezze!! :( :(

Brownms46

1 Article; 2,394 Posts

Specializes in Everything except surgery.

Anyone capable of going to the bathroom or calling for a bedpan...but would rather not because they don't want to....or are just too triffing to...ARE lazy!!! Plain and simple!!:p

I have nothing against obese people...no matter who they are...but...lying in the bed and crapping on yourself...turns my stomach...and I'm excellent nurse...for last 22yrs...and it bothers me..a LOT !!

Originally posted by Brownms46

I agree...I also thought the response was over the top. But since I have already put foot in mouth in responding to this poster...I had decided to be hang on the side...because I knew someone would speak on it. I was just waiting to see who...:)

As for the poster who told the pt to wipe their own behind...I don't blame her a bit!!

After I had my emergency c-section for severe preeclampsia, I couldn't reach behind me for much of anything, including attaching the peripad to that awful little elastic I was supposed to wear around my middle. I had a fresh incision, plus 50 pounds of edema that impeded my movement. I wasn't overweight, but I certainly looked overweight. I didn't want a lot of help from the nurses, but I needed a little help, and it was like asking for blood.

Fine, you tell your patients to go wipe their own behinds. I'll continue to have compassion for people who are sick and scared and not in their usual state of health and not in their familiar surroundings, until they give me a reason not to. Rhona, you expressed it very well!

Brownms46

1 Article; 2,394 Posts

Specializes in Everything except surgery.

First of all no one has said that someone who needs help shouldn't or wouldn't be helped or treated badly for wanting help! Next...what you decribed of your situation in no equated to a person totally capable of doing for themselves...and just refused! When the obese pt I'm talking about wanted to get up she did! She stayed in the hospital well passed her d/c date..because she laid in that bed and refused to do anything to progress or assist in her own care...but was perfectly able to!

If a pt doesn't want to do for themselves...and be a part of their progress than they have no one to blame but themselves! Caring for someone is one thing...but assisting them to become invalids is another!

LasVegasRN

835 Posts

Originally posted by OBNURSEHEATHER

My hospital has a unit like this on the top floor. Reserved for hospital big wigs, local celebrities, and newsworthy patients.

Of course, it shares a floor with psych, and I think that's soooo appropriate!

Heather

Is that still the Pavillion? (That's what it was called way back when I was there). That's funny! I thought they would have phased that out a long time ago! I floated there a couple of times from med-surg. I wonder if it's still policy that they can only be served with the long stem wine glasses for any fluids and only linen napkins (not paper!) with their meals? And I'm not kidding! :rolleyes:

Originally posted by LasVegasRN

Is that still the Pavillion? (That's what it was called way back when I was there). That's funny! I thought they would have phased that out a long time ago! I floated there a couple of times from med-surg. I wonder if it's still policy that they can only be served with the long stem wine glasses for any fluids and only linen napkins (not paper!) with their meals? And I'm not kidding! :rolleyes:

They had a floor like that in the hospital where I trained a million years ago--they called it the Gold Coast.

LasVegasRN

835 Posts

Originally posted by Brownms46

If a pt doesn't want to do for themselves...and be a part of their progress than they have no one to blame but themselves! Caring for someone is one thing...but assisting them to become invalids is another!

Brown, I don't think anyone would disagree with your statement here - not wanting to assist a patient on becoming an invalid.

Let me offer this - I had the same thinking as you did in regards to these type of clients that didn't want to help themselves. I had a 400 pounder that insisted we bathe her. I told her no, since she could walk to the restroom, she had no problem eating TWO trays, and try to "sneak" to the kitchen to take food, she could certainly bathe herself. She cried when I said that. I thought I was doing the right thing. The LPN I was teamed with saw this, who was mildly obese herself. She went in the room, and fully and completely bathed this woman. I was livid. The LPN said to me, this lady is filthy and smelly. She probably hasn't had proper bathing in months, maybe years. She CAN'T bathe herself properly, is it so bad for us to help her? And, God bless the LPN, she was right. Once this lady was properly bathed, it changed her whole attitude. She participated fully in her care, got up and did her therapy, everything. Why didn't she do it before? She was too embarrassed. She wouldn't speak to me when she was discharged and I felt like a heel. Just something to think about...

RNIAM, BSN, RN

1,214 Posts

LasVegasRN

Thank you for your story. It did my heart a world of good. I am sorry she wouldn't talk to you but I am so sure that for a small time that LPN gave her some hope. Sometimes its the little things that make a difference. Thanks for sharing that.

Brownms46

1 Article; 2,394 Posts

Specializes in Everything except surgery.
Originally posted by LasVegasRN

Brown, I don't think anyone would disagree with your statement here - not wanting to assist a patient on becoming an invalid.

Let me offer this - I had the same thinking as you did in regards to these type of clients that didn't want to help themselves. I had a 400 pounder that insisted we bathe her. I told her no, since she could walk to the restroom, she had no problem eating TWO trays, and try to "sneak" to the kitchen to take food, she could certainly bathe herself. She cried when I said that. I thought I was doing the right thing. The LPN I was teamed with saw this, who was mildly obese herself. She went in the room, and fully and completely bathed this woman. I was livid. The LPN said to me, this lady is filthy and smelly. She probably hasn't had proper bathing in months, maybe years. She CAN'T bathe herself properly, is it so bad for us to help her? And, God bless the LPN, she was right. Once this lady was properly bathed, it changed her whole attitude. She participated fully in her care, got up and did her therapy, everything. Why didn't she do it before? She was too embarrassed. She wouldn't speak to me when she was discharged and I felt like a heel. Just something to think about...

I totally agree with what that LPN did for that pt.

But again..I must say...that the pt...I have spoke of was bathed everyday...(not by me)....and also had very dry skin and I would rub her down with lotion because...it was part of her care..as I would anyone!

She was cleaned up by the staff...but I and every other co-workers, felt she should have got up to the bathroom. But no where in here did I say they or I told her...we wouldn't clean her up...or that I was mean to her in anyway...shape or form! My expression here was to say just how I felt about it...and to agree with the poster whose post was so rudely responded to!

There is NO way I will believe that allowing her to wear an attends...when she could go to the bathroom was beneficial to her in anyway, shape or form! I can no see any possible benefit to allowing this woman to regress to such a state......that she became ..dependent on someone else doing what she was totally able to do herself.. Or to go in and turn her...when she was perfectly able to turn herself!

And by became....meaning she started having diarrhea...and decided it was too much trouble to get up to the bedside commode or call for a bedpan!...and then didn't bother to get up anymore to have a BM or even to urinate!

mattsmom81

4,516 Posts

I can see I've bothered some people by what I said, but I notice that one line was ignored. I believe I said I WILL HELP THESE PEOPLE WITHIN MY LIMITS AND ABILITIES. That DOES NOT include hurting myself on them. That DOES NOT include joining the codependant ranks of family members that have enabled her/him to GET to 500#.

Also, I'm not talking about assisting some one with 50 extra lbs of edema postpartum...that will always be a given. I am quite kind to ALL my patients. However, I DO set healthy limits for myself and my staff, something that has been lacking in nursing education for some time.

Why do you think, everyone, that so many nurses are injured on the job??? Because they fail to set healthy physical limits/boundaries.

Nurses who fail to set healthy emotional boundaries with patients....doing and doing for them because "they need me' will also pay a price....eventually this codependence catches up with them. It is not healthy.

Take care of yourself nurse. You're all you got. :)

Brownms46

1 Article; 2,394 Posts

Specializes in Everything except surgery.

Again I will say it with no excuses this time! People see and read what they want to!

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