Mice on unit

Unfortunately there are guidelines in hospitals for exterminating mice. You can't use anything really "good". In our state we have to use tunnel type traps that can be carried away.

Do big cockroaches count?

You made me think about a time when a PIA resident had one swimming in his morning OJ.

I've worked in facilities where there was a fly invasion, also one where a Pt brought in equipment from home and when the night nurse went to use is hundreds of roaches spilled out. Also, came in for a shift and there was a note on the door to the nutrition room with a sign saying "The ants are back! Please clean up your spills".

"Don't diss da' Mouse!"

Last time someone complained of mice on the unit, the doctor ordered them haldol IM.

I've seen the mice in the ICU . . . found one under the bed after a code. The residents had thrown in a central line, which had become disconnected at some point during the code. In the puddle of blood and IV fluid under the bed we found a mouse, lying on its back with its front paws curled up -- electrocuted. Seems that 360 joules is too much for a mouse!

At another hospital, I witnessed a bat flying up and down the hall, looking for a way out. There was a plus-sized female security guard chasing the bat up and down the hall, squirting a CO2 fire extinguisher at it. As he got hit with more and more blasts of CO2, the bat got lighter and whiter, and started flying lower and lower . . . the object was to freeze him so Security could catch him.

When I was at a famous northeast hospital years ago, there were cockroaches. Big cockroaches, little cockroaches -- lots of cockroaches. We never put a sandwich down for fear the cockroaches would carry it away! We moved out of the building, but I swear the cockroaches came with us!

Once worked for a place with a really old, early 20th century unit. On occasions, we would have bats. We had a BATSTICK, like a yardstick with some sticky stuff on the end. We were supposed to run after the bat and whack at it.

Oh yeah ... like me who couldn't hit a basketball with the wide shovel end of a snow shovel. Oh yeah ... like I'm going to run after a moving target with a 2 inch wide stick.

NOT!

We have some whopper roaches! Could lasso those suckers! I swear they thrive on the stuff they try to kill them with! Too bad our bats won't eat them lol We throw a sheet over the bats and out them in a patient belonging bag, then some brave soul takes it out to the courtyard and let it go lol

I worked a nursing home in Sun City West back in the early 1990's on the night shift. Had to call the Sheriff for the cows meandering down the county road.

I'm petrified of mice. A nursing home I once worked at was infested them. They would be in patients rooms, the kitchen, and I even saw one running down the wall in the dinning room. I have always been able to keep my composure at work, but I was scared to death. Patients would ask for milk at 11pm, and I'd be so nervous about going into the kitchen. The facility never got rid of them, that I know on. Since then I've never seen them again at any other facility.

Oh my lanta! I would have required a complete change of clothes and a double lung transplant because mine would be worn out from screaming!!

I was once walking down a MedSurg hallway at 2 AM & a raccoon dropped out of the ceiling right in front of me. Don't know which of us was more frightened. Luckily, it scurried away into a supply closet (where the maintenance guys trapped it) rather than a patient room. But - no, no mice or rats.... thank heavens