Judging Patients & Families

Nursie30 · Nov 4, 2003

Yes I love to cook as well, its just getting my family together without one big catastrophe lol.........last year I stole a recipe off the internet from the Olive Garden, their stuffed mushrooms, it sure as a big hit with everyone:D

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Nov 4, 2003

Thank God, I'm off the day before Thanksgiving as well as the actual day this year. The past eight or nine years I've had to do ALL my cooking on Thanksgiving Day, and even though I've got it down to a science now, it's much more relaxing to take the two days I used to take to prepare everything. Maybe even get a bit of Christmas decorating done too.

LisaRN2B · Nov 4, 2003

LisaRN2B · Nov 4, 2003

Originally posted by mjlrn97
Thank God, I'm off the day before Thanksgiving as well as the actual day this year. The past eight or nine years I've had to do ALL my cooking on Thanksgiving Day, and even though I've got it down to a science now, it's much more relaxing to take the two days I used to take to prepare everything. Maybe even get a bit of Christmas decorating done too.

Lucky!

Nursie30 · Nov 4, 2003

Yeah I want to just go all out this year for some reason, I guess because our family just hasn't been as close as we normally are, just want to make it special.........:kiss

grouchy · Nov 4, 2003

This is a serious question that deserves a serious answer. I have been a nurse for over 10 years, and my experience has always been that legally, only RN's and LPN's can administer medications, including over the counter medications, such as Tylenol. Approximately 2 years ago, a travel nurse from another state told me that in her state, nurse's aides could become certified to pass medications in certain circumstances. So, the laws may differ from state to state somewhat. She was talking about giving meds to patients in nursing homes. These patients are relatively stable. While things may have been different in the past, I would really doubt that any state currently allows ER pts to be medicated by a non-nurse. That is because our legal responsibilty includes assessing the patient as well as just physically handing you the medication. Because ER pts are so unstable, you need much more knowledge to assess them - i.e., to figure out if it is safe to give the medication(we are responsible for following doctor's orders and for not following them if they are incorrrect), if the patient has had a bad reaction to the medication, etc.

I fully understand your frustration. I have sat for 6-8 hours with my Mother in the ER when she was a cancer patient, waiting for a bed, waiting for her to be seen by a doctor, waiting for pain medication. If you take the time to read some posts in the emergency nursing forum, or to look up some news articles about the crisis in the nation's ER's online, you will gain a better understanding of why this happens. ER's are the most stressed part of an already extremely overstressed health care system. This is due to a variety of reasons, primarily the steadily increasing use of ER's by the ever-growing number of uninsured pts. U.S. News and World Report did an excellent cover story on this 2-3 years ago, from which I learned that many hospitals are choosing to close their ER's, because they are losing money, thus increasing the stress on the remaining ER's in the community. And, from reading the posts in the ER nurse's forum here, I have learned that ER's essentially cannot turn away pts. It is becoming more common for overcrowded ER's to turn away ambulances to other hospitals, which is called going on diversion. But, I was surprised to learn that even when they are filled beyond capacity, they cannot turn away walk-in patients. As a result, ER nurses are left caring for shocking numbers of critical, unstable patients. Again, read the posts in the ER nurse's section. I guarantee that your jaw will drop. The ER nurse who ignore your loved one may have been dealing with 15 pts, including several who were having heart attacks, or other issues requiring intensive, critical care, all at the same time.

I'd also like to explain why I cannot legally even tell an aide to hand you a Tylenol, but I'm getting exhausted here!

Dolphin777 · Nov 4, 2003

>

I am sorry to hear about your mother and hope she is better. I would also like to thank you for taking the time to write a civil reply. It did shed some light on the problem I experienced in the ER and the hospital with my family member. I also felt some sympathy for you in your earlier post about how bad you feel when you cannot give the type of care you'd like to give because of time constraints and trying to care for multiple very sick patients at the same time.

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Nov 4, 2003

I have also waited for 6+hours for pain meds in the ER and felt like I was actually going to lose my mind from the pain. Unfortunately, pain alone won't kill you, and they had several life threatening patients. So, from my experience, being a nurse doesn't give you preferential treatment over life threatening situations, nor should it. I admit to letting coworkers jump the line when no one else needed to be seen immediately though, and just thought of it as a professional courtesy.

mattsmom81 · Nov 4, 2003

Unfortunately Dolphin's posts and questions are in truth the way much of the the general public responds to their experiences in today's understaffed hospitals.

Good response, Canoehead, ITA. :)

Educating the public about what is truly happening in healthcare will help us make progress...as our complaints seem to fall on deaf ears . I believe it will take a huge public outcry to really start to effect change; as nurses' pleas for better staffing usually fall on deaf ears. The hospital's bottom line is to make $$$$.

Also to Dolphin: long term care laws allows care assistants to pass certain medications. The laws are different in acute care facilities.

Jay-Jay, RN · Nov 5, 2003

I must ask posters to STOP the name calling and shopping suggestions going on here. It is juvenile and unprofessional. I have also warned Dolphin777 re. several of his/her posts which had to be edited.

May I suggest that YOU might be mad as h*** at nurses if YOUR loved one had waited 8 hours for pain relief?? I've had similar experiences, but since I am a nurse, I knew it was NOT THEIR FAULT. The day it happened to me, five hospitals in our area had closed their ER's due to not having any beds available, and the ER I was sent to was the only one within about 50 miles that was still open. Why did this happen?? Government cutbacks! They closed hospitals, slashed budgets and staff, and still expected the system to run as usual! :rolleyes:

Dolphin, if you really want to see improvements, take Grouchy's suggestion in another thread, and become politically active! The nurses will be right beside you!

twinRN04 · Nov 5, 2003

I agree with jay-jay...this post may have been one to frustrate others but that was definitely not the way to handle the situation. As i was reading everyone else's responses it just pissed me off to see how immature and unprofessional some people are. The post did actually have a legitimate question and I'm glad that it got answered. I was a little disappointed... :confused:

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Nov 5, 2003

Jay-Jay and Twin are right: Some of us (myself included) have not handled this thread very well, and I for one am sorry:imbar I usually don't respond to obvious flames, but this one got under my skin, and against my better judgment I reacted.....and badly. I certainly understand why Dolphin would be upset, and while I still think he/she ought to walk a mile in our NurseMates before judging nurses so harshly, I should have stayed in control and kept my fingers off the keyboard. I just loooove being hormonal:(

Again, my apologies for the knee-jerk behavior, and I'll do my best to avoid threads like this in the future. I really hate it when I make myself look like an a$$****, just because my temper escapes my control once in a while and my fingers run off at the mouth completely without permission from my brain!