Just want some opinions

Specialties Geriatric

Published

Specializes in Geriatrics.

I work at a LTC facility and on my floor I have so and so amount of patients that are my responsibility, but if for any reason an independent living resident needs help, I'm the first person they call. I was called over radio asking that I visit an independent resident that lives in a cottage on the grounds of our LTC facility. I know nothing of this resident except that she feels like her heart is pounding out of her chest and she has a non-licensed sitter with her. I get to the cottage and check her refrigerator out (that's where they keep important information). I notice she is DNR, DNH and she's hospice. I ask the sitter what's going on and she says she just keeps saying her heart is pounding. I take her vitals, all WNL except her pulse is 135 and her breathing is eratic. I turn her O2 from 6 all the way up to 10 and ask the sitter to get a cool wash cloth for her. I call the hospice nurse (which I never talked to, she was just paged and still never talked to her) and then start searching the house for the "hospice kit" knowing this woman needed morphine. Finally the sitter realizes she needs to call the HCPOA and they rush over and they frantically ask me what can they do, I respond with "well she needs morphine and/or ativan" and they respond with "ok we have that!" and he goes and gets it and administers it with shaking hands...

I'm glad I was there to help them know what to do, but I'm also very confused on why this patients status was not communicated to myself. I feel that if someone that is independent living and not a patient of my own there should be great communication that if I'm called I should know first off the patients status, but also who it is that has the "hospice kit".

Also, since this person is not technically my patient I couldn't administer any of these drugs myself (however, I was prepared to)

Am I silly for thinking this was a horrible communication fail?

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What is the policy of the facility? Are nurses in LTC responsible for the patients in the assisted or independent living? If so, where do you go to find out medical history? I wouldn't feel good in this situation either.

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Specializes in Geriatrics.
What is the policy of the facility? Are nurses in LTC responsible for the patients in the assisted or independent living? If so, where do you go to find out medical history? I wouldn't feel good in this situation either.

Where I work on assisted living we are the first responders for all of the independent living residents, there was no communication that this resident was hospice so I showed up clueless. Our policy is we can provide first aid or send them out via 911. We can't administer medications etc. I did talk to my ADON and she told me they should have never even called me, I told her I think in the future we should know who is hospice and who is not, I can't keep up with 300 independent living residents and she agreed. So hopefully this situation helped us to be better prepared in the future

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