Gloves required for ALL oral meds.

[Leonardos]

So I work in a Mental Hospital in Wisconsin, and there's a new policy that gloves are required for all oral meds. So you have to use sanitizer, put on gloves, give pills, take off gloves, use sanitizer, put on gloves, etc. Putting on new gloves for every single patient (20+) in a row, regardless of what medications they take, hazardous or not. And not just normal gloves, more expensive Nitrile gloves. And then I was told for crushed meds you will have to wear a mask, and some meds you will have to gown up completely.

Is anyone else seeing this at their workplace?

[Tenebrae, BSN, RN]

2 pairs per shift?! How high were the infections cause I bet they were ridiculous. That's just nasty!

Fortunately not many over and above what is normal for a place like that. It helped that the floor nurses all said the same and the CNA's had enough common sense to use what they needed.

[Tenebrae, BSN, RN]

Right? I often use 2-3 pairs of gloves for one code brown! (and I don't feel a bit guilty about it)

Neither do I

Which is why I'll probably never make management because I simply dont care enough about the money side of things, just give me what I need to do the job for my patient.

When I was district nursing, doing a negative pressure dressing I would use a pair of gloves to take the dressing down. Another pair of gloves to clean the wound, and another pair to apply the new dressing.

If it was bilateral leg wounds that number could double, simply because I never liked using the same pair of gloves on a different leg incase I was transfering bugs

[Jeepchick97]

Yes! That is exactly what our new policy states. It's sometimes difficult to open the packages w/ pills!

[Jeepchick97]

Why on earth would someone even pose this question and present himself or herself as a nurse? That doesn't even make sense. A bit judgy, perhaps? Maybe the person is a med. tech. & is not a nurse? Would that make a difference? BTW, I replied to the OP that the facility where I work just recently instituted this same policy. If I can get ahold of our safety huddle paper from that week, I'll copy it and post it here as proof. Lol.

[Jeepchick97]

I'm torn between being doubtful and being disappointed.

Isn't a psychiatric hospital a mental hospital? It's a synonym. It's a hospital for a person's mental health.

[wingding]

We split pills because our pharmacy is too cheap to get meds in the right dose - ergo, we touch the pill. I have taken to using gloves because the hand sanitizer has irritated my skin to a point of eczema rash at the base of a few fingers & my hands now begin to crack & peel on day 3 of using the hand sanitizer.