Getting Calls When Not On Call?

[missninaRN]

I worked a long day yesterday. I went in early, stayed late, and barely had time to eat lunch. If one patient hadn't declined a bath, I would have still been working at 7:00 p.m. (Yes, the nurses are giving baths because we lost our CHHA last week. I pray every night that we get a new one and soon.)

Shortly after getting home, my cell phone rang. It was one of our office staff who has a family member on our hospice service. The patient was in pain, couldn't have another dose of pain meds for a few hours, and she called to ask me to take care of it.

This would have been fine if I had been the nurse on call. But I wasn't. Even if I was on call, the primary nurse is the LPN (I'm just the backup) and the proper way to reach the on call nurse is through triage.

I admit that I was a tad irritated that my coworker did not call the after hours phone number we give to every patient and their family when we admit them. I don't know if she was just panicked or if she felt that being a company employee with access to the RNs cell phone numbers entitled her to call whoever she wanted whenever she wanted.

So, I very nicely instructed her to call triage so that the on call nurse could handle it. Was I wrong? What would you have done?

[AtlantaRN, RN]

You were not on call, you did nothing wrong. Pass it along to the person on call. I used to work for a company that would ALWAYS call me rather than call the on call person. Finally had to put my foot down to have a life-i changed companies. Now, it would have been another thing if you just pulled out of the driveway at the end of your shift and you were the last person to see this patient just 5 minutes ago (at the end of your day)---but that is why we have on call people.

BTW: I'm a weekend on call nurse, i start at 5p on friday, then on til 8am on monday---I usually go into the office around 3pm to get assignments and get the low down on all the patients and family issues, I don't mind if something occurs at 4:30--I'll go do it, just to alleviate the pressure the monday-friday case managers have. BUT at 8am--I come in and do report on monday and I am OFFFFFFFFFFFF........

Your work time is your work time.....your off time is your off time.......dont you feel guilty for setting limits, or you will get calls 24/7.

linda

[tewdles, RN]

maintaining boundaries can be a real problem in hospice...you are entitled to your personal time and you did nothing wrong by redirecting the caller to the accepted process...

[tencat]

Perfectly acceptable to get peeved and tell the person nicely, but firmly, that they need to call the on-call person as you're not it today.

[angieRN]

I think what you did was the right thing and totally acceptable. If that particular employee questions your actions, you can explain to them that in order to be your best for all of your patients, you have to set boundaries. If that isn't a good enough explanation for them, I would pass it along to the appropriate supervisor.