How do you feel about this?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

i know how i feel about it:

oklahoma city hospital offers treat as a reward

health

buzz up!

by susan simpson

published: october 10, 2009

cookie monster would feel right at home at community hospital in southwest oklahoma city.

that’s because patients are offered fresh-baked treats each evening, as the smell of chocolate chip cookies wafts through the halls.

:icon_roll

Specializes in home health, dialysis, others.

When so many hospitals are developing low-odor policies, this is surely a step in the wrong direction. Aside from all the obvious reasons why the nursing staff should NOT be responsible for the cookies, the odor wafting into the rooms of the patients who cannot have them just makes me sad.

I have also sent a letter to the editor.

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

If they really want to dole out homemake cookies to the patients nightly, then let the kitchen do it. We've got more important things to do.

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This article smacks of a sham . . . can't be true, but not for the obvious "harm to the patient" reasons documented above. I think it's bogus because although nurses are much too commonly asked to add to there staggering workload with ridiculous tasks like this, the fact is very few hospitals would add a service from which they would not be paid.

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Specializes in Neuro, Cardiology, ICU, Med/Surg.
This article smacks of a sham . . . can't be true, but not for the obvious "harm to the patient" reasons documented above. I think it's bogus because although nurses are much too commonly asked to add to there staggering workload with ridiculous tasks like this, the fact is very few hospitals would add a service from which they would not be paid.

I agree... Or at leas I also think that if the hospital does offer cookies, it's not the nurses making them, but the perception of the author of this article is that the job is done by the nurses, since that perception of nurses' roles persists in the general population.

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Specializes in Operating Room, Ortho, Neuro, Trauma.

At first I thought I was reading an old article that was posted on AN.com. There was a thread that mentioned hospital's that are already doing this.....https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/enough-is-enough-415217.html

I was wondering how JHACO feels about nurses working ovens vs. patient care? On the good side....freshly baked cookies smell better than vomit and poop!:specs:

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Sorry to say, but my hospital has a similar program. Volunteers do the baking, and distribute the warm from the oven cookies after checking to see which pts can have them. I get the "warm fuzzy" aspect of it, but I would rather concentrate on bragging rights to the excellent care provided, not the yummy snacks.

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

"Hi, I'm Systoly. I'll be your pillsbury dough boy, ah I mean nurse tonight. Would you like chocolate chip or oatmeal? What? Ah right, you're still NPO. You still get to enjoy the aroma though, and, of course, free of charge. Well, just between us, we do add an extra $50 for the use of your pillow, but your welcome to call your friends and family and have them over for cookies."

What a half baked idea.

I don't like baking cookies. Why can't I bring my guitar and serenade the patients? :D

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I'd be looking for another job if my facility ever tried a stunt like this. They want cookies they can make them for the patients. This is just idiocy at it's finest. These people need 24/7 care. They aren't at a hotel so let's stop pretending they are.

For a joke before I quit I'd put on an apron and put out a tip jar in each room. They want me to act as a chef and waitress I might as well look like one and be paid for it. Morons.

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Specializes in Sub Acute Rehab/ Oncology Med-Surg.

Whopps, look like I won't be hired at this hospital! I can't bake for the life of me, so all the cookies would be burnt, no matter what I do. *hehe*

Not every patient can eat cookies due to their diet restrictions/diabetic/etc. What do those patients get, then?

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PSYCH, PP, CEN.

Just shoot me now. I can't take these stupid ideas anymore

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I can see it now:

Patient: "Nurse, where are my cookies?"

Nurse: "Sir, you're NPO as of Midnight because you've got to under go triple bipass surgery in the morning."

Patient: "I was guaranteed free cookies, you bake them fresh!"

Nurse: "You can't eat them, you're going into surgery at 6am, if you eat the cookies now, then the surgeon will postpone the surgery, and there is a chance you could vomit, and aspirate, and then be in here longer because of pneumonia, have a longer recovery time, plus your blood sugar is 400"

Patient: "I'm suing you because you won't give me my chocolate chip cookies! I'm the customer, I'm always right!"

Nurse: unconscious from banging head against wall repeatedly.

where the heck do we draw the line! the hospital is NOT a Denny's!!! This is what happens when we let the Hotel industry influence how we run a healthcare facility. It'd be one thing if this place was a nursing home. I can sort of get that. You want the residents to be more comfortable and feel at home, right? Not a hospital. I fear for the future of healthcare if these corporate shmucks keep screwing things up like this.

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
Whopps, look like I won't be hired at this hospital! I can't bake for the life of me, so all the cookies would be burnt, no matter what I do. *hehe*

Not every patient can eat cookies due to their diet restrictions/diabetic/etc. What do those patients get, then?

I promise you, if I worked at that hospital, and when I addressed that same concern with the guy who thought up this idea and he said "Let them eat cake," I'd walk. LOL

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