My wife has been in the hospital 4 times in the past 2 months. During this time I have seen terrible nursing care. It seems that nurses are just robots who need to stay on a schedule of giving pills. There is no thinking at all. Every thing is by route.
A good example is that my wife is a diet controlled type 2. (diabetic) She was on glucose checks AC and HS. At HS she was 85. That was at 2100. I left to go home at 2300. When I arrived at 0700 I found out that the night nurse treated her low sugar.... This blew me away.. I asked her why she would treat some one with a normal blood sugar and on no hypoglycemics, and asymptomatic........ I honestly think she did not even understand the question.
Her next admission was for only 24 hours. She arrived in the er at 1900. They did blood work. I found out that her glucose was 75. (normal) Remember this was at 1900. She was sent to a room and I met the nurse. It was routine for her. Just fill out the paperwork. I left to go home at midnight. I arrived at 0700 the next morning. I was told that the nurse treated my wife's low sugar. Again, the same idiocy. She did not even due a finger stick, even though it was several hours after the blood work was done.
If they actually thought they were doing the right thing, they would have checked her glucose after they gave her the food and drink, to make sure her bs was normal. I am sure that if they did that, she would have been high and they might have given her insulin....then they could recheck, and she would be low, and round and round they would go......
I am adding this as an edit, as I may have not been clear. What is below has noting to do with her glucose. They gave her juice and crackers to treat the "low sugar"
I was with her for 16 hours a day for 2 weeks while she was in the hospital. What I saw scared the hell out of me. I had to constantly fight with the nurses to get her care that she needed. They would give her pills that made her vomit on an empty stomach. Then they would not learn and try to do it again. I had to fight for them to give meds with food. I had to dig the pills out of the puke to show that she did not ingest them.
I had this one nurse who wanted her to drink salt water to treat hyponatremia. I finally had to call the pharmacy and ask, or beg, for a pill. Who the hell wants to drink salt water? I pill is just as effective.
dont ask about the pain pills.......
I could write a book about all this. I am sick over health care.
When I was at the university, I was told "patients get well in spite of what we do to them" I had no idea how prophetic that was.
