PACU nurses I need your input PLEASE

[sharann, BSN, RN]

Hi,

I would like to know what state you live in and what you do when you are on-call and must recover a peds case. Are you the only one in PACU alone, or do you require 2 staff to recover kids. Lets say you had a 19 day old pyloromymotomy or a 6 yr old appy for example? Would you be alone with this child, or are you following a policy or ASPAN and have 2 nurses in the room?

Thanks!

p.s: OR nurses feel free to let me know what you see the nurses in your facilities PACU doing in the above cases.

Thanks :)

[suzanne4, RN]

Definitely ASPAN policy or take the kid directly up to peds ICU for them to recover. You should never be alone with the infant or young child. The child could just to discharged to home or transferredto peds floor after appropriate time.

It sounds like you are having to do this..............and

This is what we did in both Michigan and Arizona................

[sharann, BSN, RN]

Yes, right now we have been taking peds on our own during off hours to avoid calling in our backup call person, but we are rethinking this due to potential serious problems (a death, a lawsuit?)

[kyti]

we have 2 "people" at all times. Whoever is on call for pacu and one other person. Sometimes it is the scrub tech, Usually it is whoever they can spare from med/surg to sit with us. Usually this is not an RN. If they pts condition is unstable we can request the circulating RN stay with us. With a child is they woke up excited and combative I would have the circ nurse, scrub and anesthesiologist stay until awake and calm. The circulators get mad if you ask them to stay.