How to stop visitors from using empty bed???

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We have a number of semi-private rooms. It isn't uncommon for us to have one bed occupied with the other bed empty (awaiting a possible second patient). I can't believe how common it is for family/friends of a patient to think the second bed is there for their comfort and convenience! We have tried everything - putting the bed in the highest position, electronically locking it there, unplugging the bed from the wall outlet, placing a little card on the overhead table explaining that the bed must remain unused & clean for other patients. I'll come walking into the room and family/friends have climbed in the bed or set it up as their personal office with their laptop, and they will eat food in the bed showering it with a generous helping of potato chip crumbs. Seriously??? :mad: Any creative ideas on how to deter this?

Specializes in Pediatrics.

People who abuse the rules are clearly looking to be tested and challenged. We see these people in all walks of life. The problem is, very few people want to bother challenging them. They hope that the people will come to their senses, or that someone else will handle it. Very few people enjoy being the "bad cop". Kinda like parenting (and if people did their jobs as parents, we'd have more adults that respected rules).

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How about a trio of intoxicated young women coming up to the floor at 0230!!:madface: Since the club just closed, they just had to visit their male "friend." One of the women puked in the hallway and they all wanted to know if we could provide beds for them for the night.

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Specializes in ED/ICU/TELEMETRY/LTC.
How about a trio of intoxicated young women coming up to the floor at 0230!!:madface: Since the club just closed, they just had to visit their male "friend." One of the women puked in the hallway and they all wanted to know if we could provide beds for them for the night.

Got my vote for the dumbest people on earth.

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How about a trio of intoxicated young women coming up to the floor at 0230!!:madface: Since the club just closed, they just had to visit their male "friend." One of the women puked in the hallway and they all wanted to know if we could provide beds for them for the night.

No, but I can arrange for public intoxication charges :up:

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

It would be cool if you could electrify them somehow, so if someone who doesn't belong in the bed sits in it, you could give them a jolt. Not enough to cause permanent harm, but just enough to scare them good.

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It would be cool if you could electrify them somehow, so if someone who doesn't belong in the bed sits in it, you could give them a jolt. Not enough to cause permanent harm, but just enough to scare them good.

That's exactly what I was thinking! Maybe rig up the side rails so a random lightning bolt would shoot from one rail to the other every few minutes with a nice sizzling electric spark sound. :cool:

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

What makes me crazy is the folks who let their baby/toddler crawl around on the floor with a cookie in one hand! We all know what gets on those floors, and I'm not sure they're clean, because I sure don't smell bleach after they clean a room.

What I tell family is this: "Please don't get on the bed. I know what happened to the last person on it, and trust me, you don't want to touch it until the special pesticide has had time to finish killing the eggs. Oh...you did sit it? Are you really fond of those pants? I'd wash them immediately when I got home if I were you. No, it's completely safe, as long as you don't...touch....the....bed."

That bed will be the prettiest most undisturbed thing in the room.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

After I told one family repeatedly with their 10 wild kids that the bed was NOT for jumping on, I finally lost it. I said right everyone out now except TWO PEOPLE. Then I said the other bed is not for sitting on etc as I have to re-make it - again - and if they did it again I would call security to have them escorted out.

They were fine after that.

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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
You just have to educate the people who are visiting. If you were not a nurse, you probably would think that it is alright to sit on the bed, especially if there are no chairs around. Everyone has to remember what it was like before you were a nurse. You have to think about the patients family and not be so critical of them.

They have been educated. There are signs everywhere. They get told repeatedly.

They know and choose to behave badly, none the less.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
You just have to educate the people who are visiting. If you were not a nurse, you probably would think that it is alright to sit on the bed, especially if there are no chairs around. Everyone has to remember what it was like before you were a nurse. You have to think about the patients family and not be so critical of them.

I didn't become a nurse until I was in my 30s. Being a nurse was not required for me to understand that I shouldn't plop my behind down where it doesn't belong in public places -- my mother made sure I had that lesson over and done with by the time I was about 5.

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I am a nurse now but I will never forget when I was in my early 20 I was a pt in a hospital. I was in a semi-private room, my family had been allowed to stay the night with only one family memeber until I got a roommate and as I remember a elderly lady that was dying and her family which was never there did not want my family there at night .. ok I get it fine withme but I wroke up on morning and her family was sitting on my bed asked what she was doing I was informed that since I was sleeping and was not taking up the full bed that she figured that it was ok for her to sit there since all of the chairs was taken up by her otherfamily memebers, luckly she was transfered the next day. Some people just don,t care

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May I add also the pt was in some kinda coma state

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