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?
Specializes in Assistant Professor, Nephrology, Internal Medicine.
Had a patient's wife try to walk into a code (on another patient) and ask her husbands nurse for a refill on water. Got mad at her and myself (charge nurse) when I calmly asked her to wait at the nurses station. Seriously? Do you not see tons of staff and physicians in the room doing CPR? Also, why would you think it is acceptable to enter another patient's room? Some people...
Specializes in Flight, ER, Transport, ICU/Critical Care.
I would have tried very hard to make sure the cat was Ok!!
Me & you both Sour Lemon. I hate the entitled, but I love animals (tho I am frightened of geese).
Heck, if the patient was really sick or dying I might have stopped on my way in with a carrier, retrieved the cat & brought the kitteh to the patient. Kidding, but I would have assured kitty was okay. Somehow.
But, I'm also guilty of leaving the ER on a ER MD "mandated errand" going and getting a patient's straight dog out of her yard at her home (tho she currently lived in an ECF) and bringing it back and into the ER. Yep, I "stole" it. Took it to see her and took the hound back. Strange, but I think lots of ER staff must have had severe pup allergies, but there were so many many with red, swollen tear-stained eyes that late evening. Just saying.
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...
Sad thing is I had to discretely use my phone to google what on earth she was screaming about that wasn't on her plate like she had asked for from the kitchen.
Had another patient demanding polenta because she didn't get it the night before. She didn't seem to realize that if you didn't take the main course as your dish then you couldn't get that side-because why on earth would our meals be precooked and frozen??? Plus, it was one of the choices for the previous day, so if we are out the following day I'm sorry but I can't go grab some polenta from the vending machine for her.
Worst complaint was from administration: When we walked through the unit all the nurses were standing around at the nurses' station talking and not in the patients' rooms.
It was shift change and the nurses were giving report to the oncoming shift.
No window in her room. I could see this if she was going to be there for any length of time, but this was same day surgery. She was expected to DC in a few hours. But she made such a fuss that we had to transfer her to an inpatient room with a window. I imagine she left 1-2 hrs after that.
My eyes spasmed from trying not to let them roll back.
Doesn't it just chap your hide when they actually get what they want though? I bet you wished for a moment that you worked in an absolutely windowless hospital so you could just be like, "I'm sorry but that's impossible ma'am" *eye twitch*
Bumex, DNP, NP
1 Article; 384 Posts
Had a patient's wife try to walk into a code (on another patient) and ask her husbands nurse for a refill on water. Got mad at her and myself (charge nurse) when I calmly asked her to wait at the nurses station. Seriously? Do you not see tons of staff and physicians in the room doing CPR? Also, why would you think it is acceptable to enter another patient's room? Some people...