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.
Hurricane Lilli was in full force. There was a tornado outside the hospital. Windows were being blown out. Patients were being moved into the hall. Rain water was pouring into the building. Pharmacy was trying to fill prescriptions while trying to baracade the blown out windows. We'd lost power but our emergency generators were barely keeping up with the demand. All of this was going on when I answered the phone and an administrator said her desk lamp was out and wanted me to bring her a light bulb.
Thank God I didn't answer the phone with my name cause what I told her would easily have gotten me fired. Especially when I told her where I would put the bulb if I brought it to her.
If you have dumbwaiters please remember to close the inner door first then the outer door. It won't run if you close the outer door first. It might work if you can close the inner door with your mind.
Gotta say, sailordave, a couple weeks ago I sent in a request to have the exhaust fan in my health office bathroom fixed. Maintenance showed up and FLIPPED THE LIGHT SWITCH that turned it on:chair: I told him if he came to my house, there would have been at least a $50 stupidity charge for this. He just laughed and told me to have a good day. Please be patient with us who overlook the obvious. :bowingpur
Thank you sailordave. You've been wonderful. I have always had good rapport with maintenance/ops. We needed some plexiglas for one of our desks once. Our MM went out to the loading doc where some excess from construction was being tossed. Got it. Beveled the edges and fitted it perfectly to the desktop. It took him about an half-hour of his own time at lunch.
He was ALWAYS invited to our covered dish lunches and the quicky trips to the ice cream parlor across the street. Being nice usually costs very little but pays back a LOT.
One nurse was willing to offer me $20 to come to her home and do what I can to reduce her home electric bill and make suggestions on other things she could do. Unfortunately our schedules didn't match. Even with my wife keeping our thermostat at 73 degrees in the summer in south Louisiana our highest electric bill has never broken $100. Heat reflective window tint, solar screens, water heater set at 120, ceiling fans blowing downward and cleaned monthly, computer turned off when not in use, fluorescent bulbs where possible (wife want's regular bulb in bathroom), use toaster oven for small oven cooking like biscuits (2 or 3), one fish, one chicken breast, etc) instead of using the big oven, boil one quart of water to make 2 quarts of tea, measure out how much water you intend to drink for your coffee and use only that amount, close blinds and drapes, use cold water for laundry, and once a year clean your clothes dryer. Pull the dryer away from the wall, remove hose and electrical plug, remove back cover off dryer, remove blower housing, vacuum out inside the dryer and blower housing, clean blower fan, and put back together. You should also keep your refrigerator coils clean and keep the fridge part between 36 and 40 degrees to prevent your compressor from running more than it needs to. If your attic has electric fans then go test to see they still work properly. If it's electric then it runs on a thermostat. Set the thermostat pretty high so the fan doesn't run 24/7. Inspect attic ductwork for air leaks and repair leaks using aluminum tape. Clean and inspect ceiling vents ensuring they are properly open and louvers are aimed properly for even distribution of air flow. If you work a normal schedule, get a programable thermostat. If not then set it and leave it at that temperature. I highly recommend an automatic thermostat. You set the heater setting at say 68 and AC setting at say 78. Then if a cold front passes while you're at work you home won't be freezing. If the evening was cold and you left for work with the heater on then the AC will come on if it gets above 78. Use garden hose to keep your AC condenser coils clean (coils outside the home). If you can get to your evaporator coils then use a soft brush and soapy water to clean them. If not then pay the money for someone to come to your home to do it for you.
Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
And don't be afraid of the elevators. Our hospital test all emergency call systems in all elevators every month to ensure they work. If you hear someone trapped in an elevator and you call maintenance, please be specific as to which elevator and what floor it's stuck on. Our hospital has 17 elevators so we need to know exactly which one for fast response. If you're claustraphobic then keep in mind that there's an intentional air gap in the elevator doors and an exhaust fan to constantly draw fresh air into the elevator shaft.
I once had a hospital maintenance guy lock a malfunctioning elevator down with me on it.
I was working on the 8th floor, 3-11. I got off a little late and was the only one on the elevator. I pushed the button for 1. The door closed, it started down, and immediately started jolting really hard. I pushed the stop button, waited a moment, tried again, it did it again, I stopped it. I couldn't get the door to open, so I used the phone. The guy who answered it said "But- but- but, they were supposed to have locked that elevator down! Well, don't worry, we'll get you off there!!" So I waited. And waited. And waited. Fortunately, I am not claustrophobic.
I couldn't really hear anything but the ventilation fan. I listened but never heard anyone knocking. I occasionally knocked on the door but nothing. After I waited just a bit longer- probably 45 minutes in all- I picked up the phone again.
The same guy answered. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack! "But- but- they told me they locked that elevator down!! They'll get you off there!!"
Not long after, I finally did hear some noise. The door was pried open. It was about 5 feet off the floor of the lobby on, I think, the 5th floor. The maintenance guy and the security guard pulled a chair over, I got down on the elevator floor, and managed to crawl down.
Did I mention I was 8 months pregnant at the time??
The security guard looked at me and asked "Wasn't there an "Out of Order" sign on the door?"
"NO!"
"Oh. Well, there was a sign on the first floor."
Yes, I could easily see that up on the eighth floor.
It seems that, whenever they got the initial call from the man on the phone, they knocked on the door and didn't hear anything so just locked the elevator down. Where they thought I'd gone, I'm sure I don't know.
I was fine, just rather annoyed. I hope the guy out in plant engineering who talked to me on the telephone recovered from the shock. My son's not claustrophobic, either.
Was it hospital maintenance or elevator contractors working on the elevator? We don't do repair work on elevators. We'll try to reset the elevator and if that doesn't work we'll take it out of service and call the contractor. Using a contractor is initially expensive but it saves on Liability Insurance. When I have to fish dropped keys out the elevator shaft I take the elevator to the next floor up, put it on independent, close the outer doors while leaving the inner doors open, go down the stairs, open the outer doors, and climb down. If we find elevators broken and we can't fix them we'll put it on independent and close the outer doors to prevent anyone from trying to use it on the chance it'll start up again and stop again later. Only major problem we had with our elevators was during the hurricane we had a power blink while our #1 elevator was in motion. This caused it to stop in between floors and the only way to get it started was to call out the contractor. By the way, this was the only elevator that could run on emergency power. Our electrician and other guys were scrambling to run cables to put another elevator on emergency power for the hurricane. With our new generators this shouldn't happen again.
Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
I think it was hospital maintenance, shutting it down until it could be repaired. I don't remember for sure; the baby I was pregnant with just turned 22!
Can't believe I forgot this one. Before moving a patient's bed for any reason you MUST check to ensure everything is disconnected from the bed. We've had phone cords ripped out the wall because they were wrapped around the headboard, hand held callbell plugs break off in the wall socket cause the callbell was tied to the handrail, power cord plugs bent or break off in the electrical socket, and reading light pull string break the switch because the string was tied to the handrail. Please check the bed and please don't tie anything to the bed.
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Hope your foot feels better soon! :flowersfo
danissa, LPN, LVN
896 Posts