I swear, sometimes it seems I can not get through a shift without a patient or visitor complaining about something. From pain meds, to food quality to wait times, nurses hear it all! However, this past week, I had a couple strange complaints...
1) Visitor (patient's aunt) was mad that we did not have a blow dryer available to borrow.
2) Patient stated he did not like the way the sun came through his window.
3) Parent did not like that we carried Powerade, wanted staff to "go across street" to buy him Gatorade.
What are some of the stranger (outrageous) complaints you've heard?
My hospital does let visitors order food for themselves, they just have to pay for it. I don't think that's too uncommon. I've done laundry for patients there for extended periods of time. If I were stuck in the hospital I'd be worried about my cat.
This was an acute care hospital and visitors did not order food, and we did not do their laundry, and yes I would also be worried about my pet but would never make complaints about any of these things once told staff could not do it.
A chef who would not stop complaining about food. The first time he complained I did the customer service response thing, but I had this man 3 nights in a row and all he would do is non-stop complain about how "they don't even taste it before they send it to me, do they???" blahblahblah. Dude, it's a hospital. It was really ridiculous. To be fair, he was sent an almost completely raw potato, but that was the third night so I was unsympathetic by then.
I had a VIP patient who threw a food tray at my colleague when he didn't get his "gourmet chicken salad" for breakfast when he was admitted during lunch hour the same day. Then he complained to the charge nurse that the nurses was eating his ordered "gourmet meals".
I applied for OR- a place with neither visitors or call bells.
Not necessarily true that we don't have visitors. I thought that would be true too, but it's not. With some frequency, we have parent(s) present for anesthesia induction for some of our peds patients. We also have some cases performed awake, for which we sometimes have not only an awake patient but an interpreter for the entire case (that may be more rare outside of specific centers).
Even if I don't have a visitor in my face physically - I deal with them. Having to call and update families, having to gain their trust in 5 minutes of meeting them. Having to tell patients/families that their procedure was delayed because someone else needed surgery immediately? Nothing is more fun than explaining (without really explaining of course - no details) why a first case start scheduled for 0730 is going to be in the room at a later time...someone else nearly died this morning and might still die...but you can't give that explanation. You are allowed to say that someone else needed an emergency procedure, and that while the delay sucks, nobody was pleased about the delay, everyone gets the same level of care, there will not be any effort to hurry through their/their loved ones' procedure.
When our patients die in the OR (and maybe this is just my facility), if the family is present in our facility...we offer them the ability to see their deceased family member prior to our transferring them to the morgue. PACU staff do not sit with the patient, even if the patient is moved to an isolation room in PACU for visitation (they were never "responsible" for the patient). It remains the OR staff's (specifically RN) responsibility to stay with the deceased, and be with the deceased and their family. In these situations, the surgeons and/or anesthesiologists will tell the families, but we're the ones with the families before transferring to the morgue. I should clarify, we are asked to sit with the patient and their family for whom we vehemently fought for. We're asked to run a code to rival all codes (trying every intervention), we're asked to make everything look "presentable" (despite the requirement that we leave all lines and tubes intact and despite the situation/mechanism of injury), to "finish" the documentation, to sit with the patient we feel we failed, to sit with their family for the visceral reaction. Then, after that, most often, we're asked to get a to follow case started (or put on trauma hold)? Sometimes there is no time to decompress. Worse than having to sit with the patient and family is not being able to tell family/friends, particularly if we don't have an idea the identity of the deceased.
I was a floor nurse first. Sometimes, I'd gladly take the chaos of the floor over the chaos of the OR. Most days I love my job...and cannot imagine doing anything other than being an OR nurse...but some days are frankly worse than when I had floor patients and their families asking for something all the time.
This was an acute care hospital and visitors did not order food, and we did not do their laundry, and yes I would also be worried about my pet but would never make complaints about any of these things once told staff could not do it.
The times I've helped patients with laundry they've been appreciative. Expecting it and complaining if the nursing staff doesn't do it is a whole different ball of wax.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
A chef who would not stop complaining about food. The first time he complained I did the customer service response thing, but I had this man 3 nights in a row and all he would do is non-stop complain about how "they don't even taste it before they send it to me, do they???" blahblahblah. Dude, it's a hospital. It was really ridiculous. To be fair, he was sent an almost completely raw potato, but that was the third night so I was unsympathetic by then.
It was his karma to get that raw potato. The ones who complain the most end up being the ones that stuff happens to. If a dinner tray is ever late or missing, for sure it will be for the patient who's guaranteed to make the biggest fuss. Kind of a Murphy's Law thing.
I once had a family member complain to me because, according to him, he had a "very bad back" and our in room recliner was aggravating the pain. I, profusely apologized and referred him to the Ramada hotel across the hospital...
It was his karma to get that raw potato. The ones who complain the most end up being the ones that stuff happens to. If a dinner tray is ever late or missing, for sure it will be for the patient who's guaranteed to make the biggest fuss. Kind of a Murphy's Law thing.
I had one patient who was very particular about certain things, right down to the color of the Tums I had to pull from the medselect. On my second or third day with him, I got an earful because he didn't like the type of whipped topping on his jello. The doctor heard about this in passing and remarked, 'If he's reached the point where he's complaining about the food, he's well enough to go," and discharged him.
I'm in a specialist office, surgeons, so there's sometimes delays. I get a lot of complaints about the wait time (but they're sweet as pie to the doctors who are the late ones), but one time we had a little girl with a massive nosebleed in office. There were two clinical staff members in the room with her, the doctor was doing everything he could to stop it, and it was finally controlled. I left that room and went to the next room to apologize and update and ask they needed anything like water or juice. The dad of that child we were seeing next snapped at me about "it's about damn time". I blinked and told him-again-we'd had an emergency with a bleeding child. He yelled, top of his lungs, "I don't care and it's not my problem!" I left the room and warned my doctor that the dad was upset and being rude. How cold do you have to be to not care that a child was bleeding when you're in there with your own child?!
There are very few occasions where your faith in humanity is restored, but I wanted to do that here.
I had an elderly patient in his 80's. All night he did not hit his call light, he did not complain of pain after a surgery, and he was the most pleasant man I've had. He just wanted sleep, and being in acute care that night, I was able to give him a whole five hours. I went in to check on him at 4:45 am, and I asked if he had to go to the bathroom.
"Well, I used the jug, and I stood at the edge of my bed, but not enough to make it go off, so I could pee easier" he told me, with a grin on his face.
"I could've walked you to the bathroom, I was available" I stated, getting down to his eye level.
His eyes glanced away, then looked back at me with a sad smile. "Well, Ma'am, I just wanted you to get as much sleep as possible. It can't be easy with all those people pushing their lights, and I just wanted you to get some rest".
I smiled at him, not having the heart to tell him I didn't get to sleep on night shift. "It was the best night I've had here, thanks to you".
Daisy4RN
2,238 Posts
This was an acute care hospital and visitors did not order food, and we did not do their laundry, and yes I would also be worried about my pet but would never make complaints about any of these things once told staff could not do it.