Patients who are too lazy to open their own splenda packets

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Good grief, some patients want to revert back to being 9 month old infants!!! They also like to ask requests one at a time. Then, after you wait on them hand and foot all shift with the patience of a saint, they turn on you in an instant when their latest trivial request is not immediately granted due to the fact that there is someone circling the drain in the room next door. :rolleyes:

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
yes and after you explain that they will promptly ignore you. in their world their unopened splenda packet trumps everything in the known universe and they don't care if the person in the next room is in respiratory arrest.

seriously.

we had a patient pass out from hypoglycemia on the way through the door of our dialysis clinic. all the other patients coming through the door behind her stepped over her prostrate body and demanded that we put them on right now and deal with her later.

we had a semi-private room with two male patients. bed a's occupant starting going downhill towards the end of the midnight shift. his roommate was one of those patients who was constantly asking for food. (he wasn't my patient so i don't know his diagnosis, but there was nothing wrong with his mouth or stomach!) their rn is in with the first gentleman, and momentarily leaves his side to inform the second that he is going to have to wait just a few minutes, because she's having an emergency with his roommate. he seemed to have accepted this until a few minutes later, when he asks her "if (my roommate) is dead, can i have his breakfast?"

ri - dic - u - lous...

jess

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.
we had a semi-private room with two male patients. bed a's occupant starting going downhill towards the end of the midnight shift. his roommate was one of those patients who was constantly asking for food. (he wasn't my patient so i don't know his diagnosis, but there was nothing wrong with his mouth or stomach!) their rn is in with the first gentleman, and momentarily leaves his side to inform the second that he is going to have to wait just a few minutes, because she's having an emergency with his roommate. he seemed to have accepted this until a few minutes later, when he asks her "if (my roommate) is dead, can i have his breakfast?"

ri - dic - u - lous...

jess

i cannot read this. too small, and the light purple against the white hurts my eyes.

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Specializes in Neonates - level 2.

Oh, I've just remembered one of the patients I met 3 years ago on my first ever placement (on an elective orthopaedic ward). I admitted a very pleasant, fully mobile and self-caring woman in her early forties who strode onto the ward for a small operation on her wrist the following day. I showed her around, took her back to her bedspace, explained how everything worked and suggested she unpack and make herself comfortable. About an hour later I answered the call bell and was surprised to find "my" patient lying down in bed in her pyjamas, covered to the chin. I asked her what I could do for her and she replied in a loud whisper that she needed a bed pan. I paused to look around me, convinced that my colleagues were playing a joke on the new student, then realised with horror that she was completely sincere. I took her dressing gown off the back of the chair, held it out to her and replied "That really won't be necessary: let me show you again where the toilets are." I swear it was at that moment that I knew I could never nurse adults. I work with neonates now; they never CHOOSE to be helpless.

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
i cannot read this. too small, and the light purple against the white hurts my eyes.

we had a semi-private room with two male patients. bed a's occupant starting going downhill towards the end of the midnight shift. his roommate was one of those patients who was constantly asking for food. (he wasn't my patient so i don't know his diagnosis, but there was nothing wrong with his mouth or stomach!) their rn is in with the first gentleman, and momentarily leaves his side to inform the second that he is going to have to wait just a few minutes, because she's having an emergency with his roommate. he seemed to have accepted this until a few minutes later, when he asks her "if (my roommate) is dead, can i have his breakfast?"

ri - dic - u - lous...

jess

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.
... "if (my roommate) is dead, can i have his breakfast?"

i would have said, "sorry man, i got first dibs on it"

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I know what you mean. Patients seem to think they are at Club Med and you are their personal servant. I've had patients ask me to move their pillow 2 inches to the left! Are you kidding me??????? Our hospital has adopted the same policy as the Ritz Carlton. Unbelievable! I work in the ICU. It is not a 5 star hotel. I'm all about taking care of my patients but sometimes it is ridiculous. If you can do it yourself, then do it! I might as well go work in a 5 star resort, at least I'd get tips!

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Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.
Unbelievable!! I hope someone told these people off. The selfishness is sickening.

Nope. Can't tell them off. That's verbal abuse. :nono:

If we try to maintain any order, like making them wait in the lobby until they are called, they contact the board of nursing and complain that we have created a hostile environment that interferes with the quality of their care. Next thing we know we have an auditor on our butts watching everything we do for weeks at a time.

Better to just roll your eyes and wonder about people. :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.
I had a 300# pt who was in for the repair of her previous hernia surgery. She's post-op day 6 and getting ready to go home. She's a walkie-talkie but keeps wanting me to come wipe her behind EVERY time she goes to the bathroom. So, after about the 10th (ok, exaggeration, but it seemed like 10) time, I asked her just what she intended to do at home with no one to wipe her butt for her. Her reply? "Don't you guys have any salad tongs?? That's what I use at home to wipe with....." GROSS, and would you really want to put them in the dishwasher after that??

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Actually that is a technique taught to stroke patients; and if she is that obese she may well not have been able to reach herself properly. She had point blank told you she was incapable of reaching that part of her anatomy well enough. I've gained a bit of wieght over the past few years, and while I am not obese there are times when leaning over my own gut was not as easy as it used to be.

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Specializes in PCU.

I did have a patient who asked me to pick her nose for her. I said no, and handed her the box of tissues.:rolleyes:

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On this note i feel the need to comment a little. While I agree 100% that some patients are self centered and inconsiderate, there is a flip side to that coin...nurses who expect family to do it all.

My mother had to have bowel surgery to re-route her intestinal tract as she had a recent gastric bypass and her intestine had adhesed itself to the site of the surgery (effectively kinking up the works)

On the floor she had a huge draining abd incision. I had to help her to the bathroom, clean up after her (which was humiliating for us both, she is only 45 and i had to wipe up my own mother) and go to the nurses station for things like towels for her to hold against her wound which was draining pus and blood. Fortunately i have had some experiance but...its not my job! Im there to give her support, fetch her ice water and any other not life-altering need. Im not there to give her bodily physical care. I know the floors can get insane. I know because i am the one who admits the pts to your floor. I also know at that point in time we had low census and it was just easier to let me take care of it all than actually quit holding down the nurses station and gossiping about your latest loser boyfriend.

So while pts can be "helpless" and effectively pains in the butt, there are nurses who take advantage of family who are willing to help lighten the nursing load by going a bit extra for their family.

That said, to those who work with the family to share the load and make the patient feel well cared for, thanks! If we both do our parts, there is no reason the pt shouldnt feel like the Queen of Sheba, without overtaxing either party.

-Gyp

ps on a side note. why do floor nurses wait 24hrs to do their charting, then call census in a ***** fit because the pt is not in the "correct" status, even though they should have notified census 24hrs ago...BEFORE THE PT WAS DISCHARGED?

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What I hate most (and makes me cringe as though someone's nails were being run down a chalkboard) is when the patient's are too lazy to even use the call button and just yell out NURSE!!!

But darling, that's a sign of extreme respect! In my ER, sometimes I hear some old lady yell, "WAITRESS!" (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

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Specializes in LTC Pharmacy.

How about the ever popular and ever condescending "I pay your salary!"?

No, my employer pays my salary, because let's face it, IF you have insurance, it's only going to pay probably about a third of what your actual bill is. If you're billed for the rest, most people don't or can't pay the balance in full, because most people don't have that kind of money lying around. If you DON'T have insurance, you may be one who tries to pay in installments, or the rare bird who actually can and does pay the balance, but odds are the full amount won't be remitted.

An early poster made the excellent point that health care has sunk into the abyss it's in because the public is told that basically we're a bunch of morons who get up in the morning and see how many mistakes we can make today. The news magazines like Reader's Digest and the Today Show does more harm than they can imagine. Maybe I've missed it, but I've never seen any of these mediums present the flip side, OUR side, to the public. When do WE get to have our say?

I've never seen an article saying "Nurses are in their positions to care for the sick, to help them attain as much wellness and quality of life as possible...not to be a waitress or a handmaiden. Nurses don't show up to work to bring cups of coffee to their patient's/resident's family members, control the TV volume on your remote, or be spit on, screamed at, or hit."

Another excellent point was that corporations who own hospitals treat them as a business, and consequently focus on customer service. Customer service is something that belongs in a restaurant or a gas station, NOT in a healthcare setting. Most facilities use census based staffing, rather than acuity driven staffing, because it's cheaper. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY. They can stay just inside the federal staffing mandates and be OK, but don't think about the individual patient's/resident's needs related to staffing. The quality of care is GOING to suffer because of overburdening.

I can see a facility wanting or needing to make money. Things cost and must be paid for, and they are businesses in that respect. NOT at the expense of patient/resident care, however. Healthcare facilities may be unique in that they are the only business who DOESN'T have the luxury of minimal staffing. We're dealing with people, not appliances.

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