Informing inmates of medical care

Specialties Correctional

Published

Hello, I was wondering how your facilities inform inmates about seeing the MD.

This is what we do. When my LPN's pass medications they collect medical requests. The inmates are given a copy of the medical request, but there is no nursing note on the form at that time. The nurses then get the chart, research the problem and do what needs to be done. However, the inmate is not given that information. If he gets medication, he is called for the next medication pass, if he needs to see the MD, he is put in for the next available sick call - but he is not told that he is going to see the MD.

I have gone over NCCHC standards and there is nothing I can really find that says we have to tell the inmate what is going to be done - we can just do what needs to be done and the inmate finds out when it happens - in other words, no advance notice.

Does anyone do it differently??? If it makes a difference, we have about 2000 inmates in our facility

Sue

Director of Nursing

Florida

At the facility I worked at if the inmates wanted to see the doc they had to go thru nursing staff first. They filled out a request and were seen at the next scheduled "sick call". We had standard protocols to follow for just about everything you can think of. If whatever the inmate presented with at sick call wasnt cleared up in a couple of visits or if it was a problem the nurse felt the doc needed to see them for the inmate is put on the list to see the doc. The inmates were automatically put on the docs list and seen at regular intervals for things like HTN, diabetes etc.

Specializes in ER, ICU, Corrections.

Our inmates sign up for a triage type thing and they tell us what is wrong with them, we have protocols to use that will help to decide if we can treat them or if we send them on to the doctor. If we have tried all our treatment modalities , we scheudule them for the doctor and he will treat him appropriately. We also chart in the charts what we see and hear from each inmate when we are triaging them.

Some times the inmates will demand being seen by the doctor and we will schedule them for that. Its a fun silly game we play at correctional nursingl

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