nurses' rights!

[lenjoy03, RN]

If there's such thing as a patient's rights, do nurses have nurses' rights too? here's the story...

We have a DNI/DNR patient who was extubated few days ago. The very cruel wife stopped all the medicine and feeding. The patient has no companion and his health is improving. Yesterday, a Filipino and her husband went to the patient's room and we didn't even saw them! We usually keep the door slightly open because the patient is all alone in the room and he kept on the telling his bedside nurse to help him stand. We live the door open so that whenever someone passes by the room, we can easily see him. We had to inform the patient's wife regarding the visitor. We asked the couple to live the room, and to our surprised, this Filipina visitor with her husband told the patient's wife why different story!

We locked the room because Mrs. H. (the patient's wife who is also an american) was very mad at us! She even push my co-staff out of the room! Our manager was useless at that time! I was telling Mrs. H. the story and that we have to live the room open because he might fall. He raised her voice telling me that the patient is paralized so its imposible for him move! But that's not true! the patient's health is improving fast even without medicine! I was facing her eye-to-eye contact and she told me I'm bastos (rude) for looking at her like that! She really made a scene yesterday! Infront of the nurses' station.

Oh, did I mention that Mrs. H. is planning to kill her husband? Since in the ICU, she's asking the doctor to give the patient any medication to kill the patient! She even refused to restrain the patient so that in case the patient pulls his ET, she'll have nothing to do with it.

She's already degrading us and though the patient is very kind, we refused to take care of him now because of his wife! Even when the patient pulled his NGT out, she made a very big scene!

[judeamaria, RN]

What a difficult person the wife is! She's scary. Anyway, it seems the wife has a wrong understanding of DNR orders. Why should the medicine and feeding be stopped? Isn't it a violation of the patient's right?