Remember the Geri-Chair?

Juan was a little weary of living in the hospital. He'll do anything to get out. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

You are reading page 5 of Remember the Geri-Chair?

Specializes in Nursing Education, Psych, Med-surg.

A terrible story of abuse and neglect! Who laughs at broken backs, decubitus ulcers, and sepsis?

heron, ASN, RN

4,137 Posts

Specializes in Hospice.
RN0599 said:
A terrible story of abuse and neglect! Who laughs at broken backs, decubitus ulcers, and sepsis?

Did you even read the OP? Where did Ruby say she was laughing at the broken back, decub or the sepsis? I, too, was working back when people stayed on acute units waiting for mursing home beds. You do what you have to do, and back then, poseys, geri chairs and restricted movement were standard of care. Consider this, Juan didn't decline until he pushed himself down a flight of stairs ... does that sound consistent with a year or so of abuse and neglect?

BrandonLPN, LPN

3,358 Posts

RN0599 said:
A terrible story of abuse and neglect! Who laughs at broken backs, decubitus ulcers, and sepsis?

Oh, get a grip

TriciaJ, RN

4,328 Posts

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
A terrible story of abuse and neglect! Who laughs at broken backs, decubitus ulcers, and sepsis?

Nobody, that's who. Those were the sad parts. There was no abuse or neglect. There were a demented but enterprising patient, overworked but diligent nurses, and a complete moron of a medical student (they are not as rare as one would think). And the usual contingent of holier-than-thou folks reading this thread.

rzyzzy

389 Posts

On 2/9/2018 at 10:57 AM, RN0599 said:

A terrible story of abuse and neglect! Who laughs at broken backs, decubitus ulcers, and sepsis?

You’re absolutely correct, but as a “modern” nurse - using my critical thinking skills, I don’t see any intent to abuse except by those who set the staffing levels.

I see an intent to understaff to the point that injuries are unavoidable, and a piling-on by those who would blame a floor nurse for the decisions of senior management and government.

Start asking yourself “the five why’s” to uncover the real villain here.

Juan didn’t need to be in a hospital, he needed to be in a care facility. Juan didn’t need to be in a chair or tied to anything, he needed to be adequately supervised by people who had the time to do so, and floor nurses in a hospital didn’t have the time then, and don’t now.

All this pompous anger is misdirected at those who weren’t given a choice to refuse an unsafe (inhumane) assignment.

Many years have passed, but people like Juan are still warehoused in understaffed facilities and nurses are taking “responsibility” for situations that they didn’t create and don’t necessarily approve of.

Every shift in long-term care in the US is like a game of Russian roulette for nurses because of intentional understaffing - the nurse is “responsible” for the outcome but has no authority to fix the problem.

Trying to control and redirect people who are literally out of their minds takes people with oodles of patience and lots of them, and that’s expensive.

Until you’re ready to force the government to enact appropriate staffing requirements (and pay for them), you’ll be left with “the right to fall” and other nonsense that is pretty much the same as restraints, just a slightly different mechanism of death.