New Nurse Completely Surprised!!!

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Hello All,

New to allnurses, and just wanted to get some opinions. I am a new nurse (LPN), started my first week at a long term care facility. I have observed many nurses not wearing gloves while doing patient care. The nurses and aides were not wearing gloves when taking residents to the bathroom, and when drawing blood, and fingersticks. Just wondering if this was the norm where any of you work?? :confused:

Specializes in ICU, Research, Corrections.
you glove up when giving po meds? isn't that a little ocd? what's the rationale? i've seen a couple of ocd nurses at work who are glove up at all times, such as, when giving po meds, opening the med cart and treatment cart, answering the phone, taking patients bp etc..

i wear gloves when i give po meds. my rationale is that 90% of the time i am

going to have to physically place a pill in someone's mouth. my patients

are too sick to be able to place the pills themselves. i am not going to stick

my hand in someone's mouth without gloves.

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I wear gloves when I give PO meds. My rationale is that 90% of the time I am

going to have to physically place a pill in someone's MOUTH. My patients

are too sick to be able to place the pills themselves. I am not going to stick

my hand in someone's mouth without gloves.

Okay...that is different. If you are coming close to their mouth etc..I would wear gloves too or use a spoon. I work in a LTC and have to assist res with meds and would either use a spoon or gloves.

I can't believe LTCs not having gloves. We go thru gloves like crazy.

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I used to work in a LTC several years ago. I was a still a teen and it was my first CNA job. The facility didn't allow us to wear gloves to feed. I did it anyway because we had residents who were kind of messy and you never knew what might get on your hands. We had one man in particular who would intentionally try to put his lips on your fingers and try to lick your hands. Bizarre.

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Specializes in Retired OR nurse/Tissue bank technician.

When I did a palliative care rotation, I was instructed to not use gloves when emptying and changing a patient's ostomy bag because, as the manager put it, "It would damage his self-esteem because he would feel like his bag and what was in it was dirty". :uhoh3:

It's poop. I don't care if it comes out of an ostomy or out of an orifice, it's full of pathogens that I don't want on my hands, even if I do wash between patients.

Oh, and that was the other thing-we weren't to wash our hands in the patients' rooms, lest they think we were judging them to be dirty or contaminated.

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When I did a palliative care rotation, I was instructed to not use gloves when emptying and changing a patient's ostomy bag because, as the manager put it, "It would damage his self-esteem because he would feel like his bag and what was in it was dirty". :uhoh3:

It's poop. I don't care if it comes out of an ostomy or out of an orifice, it's full of pathogens that I don't want on my hands, even if I do wash between patients.

Oh, and that was the other thing-we weren't to wash our hands in the patients' rooms, lest they think we were judging them to be dirty or contaminated.

Oh my...:uhoh3:

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Specializes in psych, general, emerg, mash.

washing your hands before & after a procedure, you dont need gloves!

as long as you do not have an open infection aka wound!

If you dressing a wound..wear a mask..in case you sneeze! you dont want boogers in the wound

USE that thing thats attached to your neck, your head! Ask questions of the staff on the ward. Some of us old school thinking, before everyone got paranoid, got us by well!

and no jewellery!

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Specializes in LT, skilled, IV, pediatrics.

For all those who posted here that their facility either locked up the gloves or just didn't have them available, what happens when your State comes in for survey? Does the facility suddenly go out and buy a bunch of gloves and distribute them?

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For all those who posted here that their facility either locked up the gloves or just didn't have them available, what happens when your State comes in for survey? Does the facility suddenly go out and buy a bunch of gloves and distribute them?

I posted about nursing homes I've been in where they didn't have gloves available (locked in a hall closet in one facility) but I was only there for clinicals so I really don't know what they do when the state comes. The other nursing homes had gloves available, they just weren't being used by the CNA's. I currently work at an assisted living facility and our administrator/owner doesn't supply us with gloves. I bring my own, I don't what the other girls do. I haven't been there long so I don't know about the state situation there either. BUT, the state did come recently and as far as I know, nothing was said about the lack of gloves. The rules might be different for assisted living, I don't really know.

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washing your hands before & after a procedure, you dont need gloves!

as long as you do not have an open infection aka wound!

If you dressing a wound..wear a mask..in case you sneeze! you dont want boogers in the wound

USE that thing thats attached to your neck, your head! Ask questions of the staff on the ward. Some of us old school thinking, before everyone got paranoid, got us by well!

and no jewellery!

That may be true, but I just can't stand the idea of getting feces, urine, blood, etc, on my hands!

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I work in a hospital with an infection control nurse and things have changed in the last year at this place. When we send to central supply for the cart, we are to designate type of isolation. If it is airborne or droplet they don't necessarily put gowns in the cart. Maybe this is just a hitch in someone's giddy-up, but when we asked... we were told gowns weren't needed for airborne or droplet precaution. Seriously? Not even for droplet? What about fomites? There have also been emails, that I just furrow the eyebrows at, saying we don't need to be wearing gloves as often as we do... um whatever.

I think it is money based.... disposable gowns are expensive. We have a large underserved population who have vague medical histories... most of the time I feel like I am protecting my other patients as much as myself from whatever else one patient might have. I know HAI are huge issue right now, so it is even harder to understand when the iso carts seem intentionally incomplete.

Maybe I need to check out the CDC website... but it seems suspiciously money driven, not EBP.

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Specializes in Nursing home, Research, Pulmonary.

Hi

As a fairly new RN, long time LPN, my new experience as an RN (which my previous employer would not let me keep my newly gotten RN and I quit to take on an RN position) at an Rehabilitation Center/Long term care facility, I was not only surprised but shocked at various ways nursing staff avoided what we were all taught in school to do;

Not wearing gloves to do finger sticks - saves on time!

Not locking the drug cart fully - only looks locked - saves time!

As I informed my supervisiors what I was seeing, the comments I got was "you are fine, keep on doing what you are doing...".

I wear gloves with finger sticks and lock the drug chart, and yes I take soo much longer than the "pros" who have been there for a while...

And my patient ratio is 1:20

Break=15 min in the corner eating my sandwhich for lunch

I am not complaining it is just I hear you, we are taught what is right and as good nurses we do what is right. Your scenario sounds very familiar to me.

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Keep wearing your gloves. You are 100% correct--gloves protect you and your patients. Hand hygiene needs to be done each time after removing gloves as well. Soap and water or alcohol-based gel is the way to go !

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