nurses from maintenance point of view

[sailordave]

I do building maintenance at a hospital. When you submit a request for a repair, please be specific. "Toilet don't work" just isn't enough. Is it clogged? Does the water not flow when flushed? What is it? Also, I wish the floor staff would stop keeping the Soft-N-Fresh paper towels in the patient rooms. Some CNA's and patient's family seem to think these are great toilet paper until they clog up their toilet. And what is it about women who just gave birth that makes them think pads go in the toilet? I've had to deal with a nurse cursing me out for a tv not working in an empty room when the only thing wrong was she was too stupid to realize it wasn't plugged in the electrical socket. We had a roof leaking water near the station's kitchen and the floor supervisor tried to order me to go on the roof in the middle of a thunder storm to put out tarp to stop the leak. I tried to be as polite as possible when I told her no and if she didn't like it to write me up. I've pulled knives, straws, food, and paper out of the drain pipe of a sink in NICU and the nurses there said, "well why don't you install a garbage disposal?". I went off on her and told her why should the hospital pay for you to have a disposal when you're putting things in the sink that would break a disposal. Also, if something is broken and is important, send a request to maintenance. Don't wait until you happen to see us in a hall and say, "oh, by the way, since you're here,..." If we're on the floor then we're already busy with something and we don't have perfect memory to remember all of our duties as well as the one you "happen" to remember when you saw us. If a patient is complaining they are too hot or too cold, send a maintenance request before requesting a fan and don't assume that since you're comfortable that the patient is imagining they're hot or cold. I enjoy making the patient's comfortable. I hate seeing a patient sweating for days before someone bothers to let us know of the problem. And quit opening windows. We have some nurses who constantly open windows because they're either too hot or too cold while everyone else is comfortable. Stick your head in the freezer if you're having hot flashes and leave the windows alone. And to the ER staff members, if you have the key to access the elevators' independent service, remember to turn it back to normal when you're finished. Also for the ER, get your own tools. I don't mind bringing tools to the ER for medical staff to use on a patient but they always seem to expect me to use the tools on the patient which ain't gonna happen. One genius wanted me to bring my greasy boiler room tools to surgery. No, I didn't bring them the tools to use on a patient. Surgery has sterile tools for that, they just had to get off their lazy backsides to go find them for themselves. There are a few good nurses here where I work, but they are so few that all the lazy ignorant ones stand out. How about the floor that decided to take the education TV VCR cart to their desk, turn off all the lights, pop some popcorn, and watch a movie for their shift? Yep, they did that and yep, I reported them, and yep, they got a light slap on the wrist. That's what happens when your administration is made up of majority of former nurses. They can do no wrong while every other staff can't do anything right.

[SaraO'Hara]

Ja, ours are usually accessed from the bottom... like old jalopy cars. This being long-term care, there usually isn't a spare bed, so we try to get them fixed while patients are up at lunch or such.

[sailordave]

What I really like is setting up the education cart for TV/VCR/DVD. I love fooling with home theater electronics so I love it when peds or some other floor wants me to set this up. What I don't like is patients trying to set up their DVD or video game system on our TVs for themselves. Not all TVs have audio/video connections. Managed to stop one patient who was standing on a chair pulling cables out the wall trying to connect his sony playstation to our tv. Our carpenters spent the day repairing the hole in the wall.

[sailordave]

I wish we still had the old handcrank beds. Pain in the butt for the staff but great for maintenance. Just a little lubrication or maybe replacing a shear pin and it was fixed.

Oh, I just remembered something else. If you're assigned to a floor and you have empty rooms, try to make sure the lights and TV are off on those rooms. It won't take but a second or two as you do your rounds to step inside to turn them off. Think of it this way, if there's no patient in the room then no one is paying for the electricity being used. I know housekeeping leaves them on but it's everyone's job to help reduce utility usage.

[prmenrs, RN]

I used to work on a unit in which we could not control the AC/Heat. So we were forever calling over there to tell them it was too hot or too cold.

One pm shift, I opened a cupboard door and it fell off the cabinet! I called maintenence to request a repair. There was a short silence on the other end. Finally the man said, "This is the 1st time I've taken a call from your unit where you didn't complain about the weather!"

[sailordave]

Oh, this isn't a gripe about nurses cause almost everyone does this. When you walk up to the elevator, only press the button for the direction you're going. Don't press both the up and down together. This slows down the flow of traffic of the elevators. Also, if you can go on the stairs up one flight or down two flights. It'll be faster, you'll get a little exercise, and you'll save a little electricity.

[sailordave]

Our nurses station thermostats are not computerized. The floor staff have full control which is a problem. We have one nurse in particular who is always cold. She comes to work wearing longjohns and a sweater. She turns the thermostat to 80 all the time.

Here's what I suggest you do. First, call maintenance to find out if your thermostat is on a computer control. Next, discuss with the floor supervisor what would be the optimum setpoint for the thermostat to be set at, this is usually between 70 to 72. Have your supervisor contact maintenance to have the thermostat set at that temperature and ask them to not change it up or down without the floor supervisor's permission. Then have him/her email and talk to the floor staff informing them of the decision. You cannot please everyone on the floor temperature wise but it's best to find a middle ground. Example, ER waiting area is kept between 70 to 72. Some patients are hot, some are cold, some are comfortable, but you'll never please everyone.

[Becca608]

Thanks for the great tips SailorDave. I hope you heal well.

[sailordave]

Some minor problems. Call bells and telephones. If a call bell or telephone is broken and you replace it with one from an empty room, please send a mainenance request letting us know it's broken and where the broken one is located. Too often they're left in clean or soiled utility rooms or desk drawers. We only have a limited number of call bells. This is even worse when it comes to soft touch call bells. We try to keep them in a central location in maintenance. When we run out and there's a patient in need we have to search all the floors until we find one stored away on the floor.

[sailordave]

What I like most about computerized thermostats is we can set a minimum and maximum temperature and give the staff control of the thermostat. In one office we have the minimum at 68 and maximum at 76. No matter how high or low they set the thermostat it will not get any lower or higher than those two settings. We have problems with day crew setting the thermostat at 60. Because it's a wide open area it takes time to drop the temperature that low. By then the shift has changed. The evening shift gets too cold and raises it up to 80 and the cycle is repeated all over again. Being able to set the minimum and maximum setpoints ends the cycle and reduces utility usage.

[sailordave]

Something else that's bothered me and this comes from being a former patient and my wife being a former patient. It would be nice if after 9 or 10pm the floors staff would turn off most of the lights down the wing and lower their voices. Try to imagine you're sleeping and someone suddenly throws on all the lights in your eyes. You're already stressed from surgery and worries and are trying to rest and this happens. I know you have to make checks on patients but if the lights are out in the hall and you step into the room, announce yourself quietly, and warn the patient before turning on some lights it would be easier on everyone in the room.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Hi sailordave and welcome!

Funny stories - it is good to vent. I agree with Steve though - careful with the names . . . .

We really appreciate our maintenance guys . . . .

steph

[sailordave]

New guy got a trouble call. Request said, "water level in toilet is too high". He goes up to the room with a plunger and found nothing wrong with the patient's toilet. He asked the old man in the bed what was wrong with the toilet. Old man said, "every time I sit on the throne my jewels hit the water"

One night my pager went off and the nurse said for me to bring them a new call bell because they had a code brown. I discovered what a code brown was before I even got to the room. I handed her the new call bell. She held up the old call bell covered in fecces and asked what to do with the old one;...told her to red bag it.

Helpful hint,...Vicks inhaler. I keep it in my desk drawer. I use it to get bad odors out my nose. Don't like the smell of Vicks but I hate the smell of rotting flesh and fecces even more. It works instantly.