If YOU were the patient, would you feel comfortable...

Nurses Relations

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Using the same bed and sharing a bathroom with a roommate like our regular patients do in a hospital? This thought just occured to me and I wanted to share it with my AN family! Personally, I would dread my whole stay there. I work as cna and knowing the number of bed changes we do with incontinent patients using washclothes to clean them up, it makes me cringe lol. I know our laundry dept does a great job of keeping our linens clean, but I can't imagine using the same sheets and towels to lay and bathe with knowing those same linens were used to clean up a patient with diarrhea! Don't even get me started with the bathrooms haha. Housekeeping cleans the rooms after a patient is discharged, so the rooms are sanitized, but how can I use the same toliet knowing a week ealier a patient with C-Diff had explosive diarrhea and it went everywhere. If I was a patient and had my own way, I would have a private room and bring my own linens and stack the toliet seat with those seat covers!

I'm not the kind of person that grosses out easily. Poop, urine, vomit, blood etc seen them all and still can hold a meal down ;) But when it comes using those linens as a patient, knowing what I know, my stomach churns!

Soo...what are your thoughts?

Dear immune system,

Thank you for protecting me from all the grossness that I have and will encounter in my life. I am eternaly grateful to you that I don't have to worry about using a c-diff soiled cloth.

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Wash cloths and linned aren't my concern...look into the laundry and you will see that they wash and dry at very hot temps.

The privacy curtains, matresses and pillows..I'm not thinking about them......

I was just talking about the sharing of baths..we have semi private rooms that share bathrooms. If I were a resident in my LTC...I would have my cna or nurse assist me in clorox wiping in the bathroom before I went in..Yep. I would even wipe down things in my own part of the room.

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Specializes in Intermediate care.
You know what is really nasty....even nastier than washcloths......the MATTRESSES. How many times have you have a heavy incontinent patient with diarrhea or urine that soaked onto the mattress? EW!! :uhoh21: :barf01:

hm...our mattresses are waterproof. basicallly reminds me of a slip'n' slide. It literally will slide right off, so it doesnt soak up, just gotta wipe it down.

A regular mattress would be disgusting. (coming from a germaphobe)

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

I guess after spending extended periods of time in the back country, my idea of clean and what I am willing to sleep in has changed. I am not bothered by the idea of staying n the beds at all.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Emergency, SAFE.
I have honestly never seen 2 patients in 1 room. Our hospitals here have private rooms in all 4 hospitals and all my times as a patient I have never shared a room. They are cleaned very good after a discharge and the plastic mattresses are Cavi wiped really well or something equal to that is used. I know linens and stuff are disinfected as well.

Number 1 complaint at my job comes from the patients in the 4 double rooms we have. I didnt even know hospitals could exist without double rooms!

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Number 1 complaint at my job comes from the patients in the 4 double rooms we have. I didnt even know hospitals could exist without double rooms!

Yea I wouldn't like sharing a room or bathroom. Especially when I am sick. Outside of that though I never thought about the beds or linens and stuff when I was in the hospital.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

The linen doesn't squick me out too badly (unless I can still see some leftover stains from the days gone by), but our mattresses... :eek: They're supposed to be waterproof, and more than once have I seen blood soak through them!

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.
I find it odd that most of us have no big problem sharing with the public that we do not know who has what ? But it's when we know how gross someone is or that thay have somthing that we flip out . case in point I will the bathroom all day long at work but will olney use one tolit in my own bathroom at home because I know my dad pees every where and has druge resent infition but if he where to use a bathroom out in public the person useing it after him would not know ?

I figure if Haiti didn't kill me not much else will. But my patients are women who are bleeding postpartum, sometimes with stitches/incisions (an extra portal of infection), and sometimes with sick babies in NICU. I'd rather they not have to share with someone else. Fortunately we went to all-private rooms, so no more worries about it.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I have honestly never seen 2 patients in 1 room. Our hospitals here have private rooms in all 4 hospitals and all my times as a patient I have never shared a room. They are cleaned very good after a discharge and the plastic mattresses are Cavi wiped really well or something equal to that is used. I know linens and stuff are disinfected as well.

I know of a hospital right now that still has 4 to a room........:eek: and when I'm a patient I try very hard NOT to think about who or what have been on those linens and I use my own nightgowns /PJ's. I fish my own IV lines so they can't use that as an excuse to put on a patient gown. I use baby wipes for wash clothes and bathing. At least in my home my Kooties are at least that.....MINE.:smokin:

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The previous post about using disposable cloths for wiping butts and peri care is nice..but unfortunately not sustainable. I work in LTC and we get one shipment a month or so of the disposable cloths and my aides grab as many as they can, some even stash them around the unit so they will have some for later shifts.

But in the end (lol made a funny) we always run out and then its hand cloths for the nasty work...if our laundry has left enough for us in linen service..otherwise it's like being back in the marines...you get 3 squares of tp to wipe..well in my LTC you get 1 washcloth to clean up a huge hot mess that just erupted out of your c-diff pt.

as for anything else at work...cups..toliets...mattreses..I'm not a germaphobe..figure im crawlin with about 95% of what my pts bring in...but I refuse to eat at work (first because I feel guilty if a pt see's me eating fast food or home cooked food while they are slurping down mech soft meat that looks like grey baby food- and 2nd because work doesnt leave me with much of an appetite until I get home).

I am fortunate to be male and have great bowel control and can "stand" for the other...how some women can hover over a toilet I still think is a gymnastic feat i could never master.

My kids still think I hate them some days because I come home and won't let them touch me until I strip outta the scrubs and shower...and it is an ultimate crime in my household for my kids to touch my workshoes...just one tale of what I walk thru, step in, and get splashed on them has traumatized them enough they wont go near any of my shoes :lol2:

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Specializes in Cardiac.

I just don't let myself think about it too much or I will GO INSANE!!!!

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Similar for hotels - you have NO idea what kind of person slept in the bed before you and people usually ALWAYS have sexual relations in bed too! But what can you do! Oy vey!

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