Recently, the hospital where I work had a male patient on the med/surg floor who was sexually harassing the female nurses - groping them, pinching them, pulling their tops out so he could look down them, etc. The floor decided to assign all male nurses to him, but that was even worse because he was making disgusting assumptions about their sexual preference.
So, they called a male nurse from another floor who's about 6'7" and 400 pounds, and he introduced himself and told the patient, "We don't harass nurses in this hospital."
It was a joke Leslie. I still think you're wrong and we have every right to stand up for ourselves and let the patients know that their behavior is not only inappropriate, but will not be tolerated. We should also be able to do that without calling security.
The hospital I work at has no security. The big guys...nurses, aides, janitors are the security.
Specializes in Med Surg, Ortho, L & D (yea BABY!).
why would you think you were crazy?
because someone else has a different opinion?
btw, the nurses do have a right to press charges.
security is also another appropriate intervention.
afterall, it is their job to maintain law/order.
maybe the pt needs a psyche eval?
or social services?
firm limit-setting?
transfer to another facility?
there are other alternatives, other than bullying.
i'm pretty sure my bon's code of ethics, would agree.
leslie
Well, to be honest, I think you are splitting hairs here. All of the above scenarios you described above could potentially be interpreted by a pt as being bullied or intimidated. The quickest, easiest and most efficient way to deal with a situation is for a staff person to inform the pt that the behavior is inappropriate and won't be tolerated. Your issue with the staff person being 6'7 and 400 lbs and "intimidating" or "bullying" is unrealistic in my opinion. Reality is that I don't have time to deal with outside agencies and/or mountains of paperwork just to get thru my shift and deal with an unruly pt b/c god forbid, he acts like a jerk, but I don't want HIM to feel INTIMIDATED? Please, GET REAL!
Let me give an example:
I have an 80 yr old male who is confused, has dementia and everytime a female nurse is within his reach, he acts like an 18 yr old on hormones.....what do I do? First, I laugh. Second, I learn how to dodge him and be quick. 3rd, I tell him no, he can't do whatever it is he is doing. Do I ever even entertain the thought of calling security on him? Nope, probably not...because, no matter what I do, he won't recall it 5 minutes later. That is the reality of being a nurse.
Second scenario: I have an alert and oriented 35 year old. Every time I enter his room, he makes inappropriate comments about me, my appearance etc. Whenever I am within his reach, he gropes me, tries to pull down my scrub top etc. What do I do? Well, I am 5'3 and 140 lbs. Sure, I can the local police and file a complaint. I can call for a psyche and social services consult. I can establish "limits". If the pt is A&O x3, and acting in his right mind, then he is behaving in his right mind and knows very well what he is doing, so "establishing limits" is probably useless. In the meantime, I still need to take care of this pt., give him his meds, do his treatments etc. In my opinion, the quickest, easiest and most efficient way for me to care for this pt, is to call any and everyone in the immediate area to help me deal with this pt. If the pt is "intimidated" or feels "bullied" by the security guards, 6'7 male nurses etc in his room, that's his problem. If he doesn't want to feel "bullied" or "intimidated" he shouldn't have acted that way in the first place!!!!!!!!
In my opinion. "bullying" would be say, calling security on an 80 yr old confused pt who does not understand or remember what happened 5 minutes ago....NOT trying to reign in an a&0 x3 pt who wants to be a jerk!!
I don't think assigning a big burly nurse to a patient to encourage him to stop harassing nurses is any different that switching his assignment to all males to stop the harrassment. Hopefully the thought process in the assignment was to stop the guy from harrassing people, rather than strictly to bully and intiminidate him.
If this big nurse only said "we do not harrass nurses, it's inappropriate" then I'm o.k. with it. Hopepfully he went about his business as a nurse in a professional and normal manner. If he made any threats, or made a threatening stance, then I can see where a line was crossed and it's bullying and can see Leslie's point. But the assignment per se wasn't bullying in my opinion.
Specializes in home health, peds, case management.
leslie....
i both understand and admire your position as a voracious patient advocate....but i agree in this case that this was not a matter of bullying....i think it is a disservice to the "big burly" male in question to assume that he is not capable of respectful compassionate nursing care....would it be bullying if the comment "we dont disrespect nures here" came from the nurse who was being harassed? obviously not...however, if said commment were delivered by the burly nurse in question follwed by something inappropriate, or with baseball bat in hand....that would be another matter entirely...doubtful to me that the patient would have resepected anything any female nurse said....i think your bon would have little to say about this particular situation....i dont see the point in bringing that up at all....
yotoc
10 Posts
Thanks to both of the last posters. I was starting to think I was crazy and had no business "intimidating" patients that acted like idiots. :)