800lbs plus man

chadash · Apr 6, 2006

FYI I had a friend who weighed 600 pounds, he was a nursing supervisor, rode a Harley Hogg to work. He had an accident on his Hogg and was tranported to the hospital on top of a fire truck. This was many years ago, he died several months later while on duty, shower of clots from his legs. One of the most unique individuals I ever met! Miss you David.

Thanks for sharing that.

WVUturtle514 · Apr 6, 2006

In addition to hospitals lacking equipment to help the nurses care for these super obese patients, you also run into the trouble of not be able to provide certain treatments and tests for these patients due to their size. Both hospitals that I have worked at had a 350lb limit on their CT scan machines and needless to say, these patients could not fit in an MRI machine either. So this is another way in which their care could potentially be compromised.

jessnurse05 · Apr 6, 2006

I don't think my hospital has any special lifts for obese pts. It upset me when everyone was telling the 400 lb pt we had to just have a bm in the bed and we'd clean her up. How humiliating is that? She was certainly continent of stool. I don't know if they day shift knew about some equipment that the night shift didn't have because there was a big commode outside her room. When I was her nurse I tried to get her to use a large bedpan, but she refused. She didn't have a bm when I took care of her so I didn't have to push it any further.

Do any of you who don't have bariatric equipment handle this any differently? It's interesting that this subject came up just now because I was going to post a question about it anyway.

Jessica

wooh, BSN, RN · Apr 6, 2006

I don't know if they day shift knew about some equipment that the night shift didn't have because there was a big commode outside her room.

Could have been a staffing issue. It takes a lot of staff to get the heavier patients out of bed to a bedside commode. Not to mention, if they fall, it takes even more staff to safely get them off the floor. (And by "safely" I mean both for the patient and for the staff, working nights definitely doesn't make my back as strong as two people even if I can take twice the patients of dayshift!) During the day, you've not only got more nurses, but you've got PT staff there. At night, that patient can be on the floor for a good long while trying to bring people from other floors, ER, etc to help. It sucks to have a BM in bed, but realistically, it sucks even more to fall and be stuck on the floor.