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 M/S, dialysis, home health, SNF.

I'm lovin' it!

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Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
It has nothing to do with electrolytes and everything to do with selfishness.

I think if I was the one on the floor, I would probably try to gather enough strengh to trip someone. Or bite their ankle. That would get their attention.

I know that, I was being sarcastic.:lol2: It just steams my clams when someone comes in one of these threads to tell us how horrible we all are and what we should do to better ourselves, as if we are the reason the patients are acting like the northbound end of a southbound mule.

THIS is my journal, and my "Dance of Anger" will be the hopping up and down in the corner where no one can see me, thank you!

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Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

I worked dialysis, for about 6 months, some 20 years ago.

While I didn't like it at all, and found the patients very demanding, I can't imagine this happening with our patients. While they might compete to get on and off the machine ahead of each other, they were concerned about one another, and I feel sure would have alerted the staff to another patient's being in distress.

So, I don't buy the electrolyte excuse, either.

I also have to admit that my first, immediate reaction to the "they were probably in a hurry to get to work" comment was "you have dialysis patients who work?" At that time I think we had maybe three who were employed. One of those basically did everything for himself but his own vital signs.

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With all this talk about patient's family helping out with turning and such, I'm just curious, if a family member was to hurt themselves in some way while helping us do our job, could we as nurses some how be held responsible for letting them help or encouraging it? Like if the family member said "Oh but nurse so-and-so asked me to help turn grandpa...."

I'm sorry I don't have a reference for this, but I'm sure I read it somewhere...maybe even on this board...

The story says (as I remember it) that a husband was helping to hold his wife as she was getting an epidural. We was awquardly placed I guess...got queasy from the needle, passed out, hit his head on a corner on the way down and died. Family is suing the hospital saying that husband was asked to perform a task he wasn't qualified to do. Interesting...

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I worked dialysis, for about 6 months, some 20 years ago.

While I didn't like it at all, and found the patients very demanding, I can't imagine this happening with our patients. While they might compete to get on and off the machine ahead of each other, they were concerned about one another, and I feel sure would have alerted the staff to another patient's being in distress.

So, I don't buy the electrolyte excuse, either.

I also have to admit that my first, immediate reaction to the "they were probably in a hurry to get to work" comment was "you have dialysis patients who work?" At that time I think we had maybe three who were employed. One of those basically did everything for himself but his own vital signs.

I had wondered about that myself - employed dialysis patients. Most of the dialysis patients I've heard about are retirement age.

My 40-year-old cousin is on dialysis and works full time but he uses PD at night. He's a veterinarian and his wife is an RN, so they know what they're doing.

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I'll always remember this story...my mom was a postpartum nurse and she was discharging a woman home, she came into the room and the woman was in the bathroom bending over, yelling at my mom to..."WIPE MY BUTT"

My mom basically said, uh...no. You're going home in 1 hour and you are going to be taking care of a baby, you need to be able to wipe your own butt.

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Specializes in Medical, Paeds, Ob gyn, NICU.
This reminded me of an old lady in the ER who asked me to set her glasseson the bedside table for her which was, of course, easily within reach. I told her, "No, but I'll move the table closer in case you cannot stretch your arm that far." She replied by putting her glasses down all by her self without me having to move the table. I also told her I was there to help her get better, and I needed to know she could care for her self before sending her home. She was persistent, but all of her other replies were met with similar answers until she just gave up.

The hospital I work at is mainly a rehab/waiting for nursing home placement hospital.

For any patients who try that type of thing, we just tell them seriously "well if you are starting to have problems doing things like that for yourself, maybe you should start to consider going into a nursing home, would you like me to arrange a meeting..." :rolleyes:

It is amazing how fast they start to do stuff for themselves again, and how much better their walking ect gets :lol2:

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Specializes in ICU, Med/Surg, Ortho.
There's only one good answer to that----------

"Great! Can I have a raise?"

Or:

Ok, I charge an extra $10.00 an hour for maid service - CASH and in advance!

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Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.
I worked dialysis, for about 6 months, some 20 years ago.

While I didn't like it at all, and found the patients very demanding, I can't imagine this happening with our patients. While they might compete to get on and off the machine ahead of each other, they were concerned about one another, and I feel sure would have alerted the staff to another patient's being in distress.

So, I don't buy the electrolyte excuse, either.

I also have to admit that my first, immediate reaction to the "they were probably in a hurry to get to work" comment was "you have dialysis patients who work?" At that time I think we had maybe three who were employed. One of those basically did everything for himself but his own vital signs.

That was kind of my reaction to. What? Work? Dialysis patient?

A fair number of our patients didn't work BEFORE they were on dialysis either. I have noticed the same thing as you. Our patients who work or have other things going on, are far more patient and understanding when things go wrong and we're running behind. They're more realistic. And they tend to be more self reliant overall. They take their own temps, their own blood pressure and tape themselves up at the end. We even have a guy who puts his own needles in.

Dialysis patients in general have special quirks that other patients don't have. They tend to be more controlling about little things, and I do whatever I can to accomodate their little quirks because I know they can't help it. It's part of the deal. I actually am quite fond of most of our patients. They see us more than they see their families, so relationships develop. However, the point of this thread is selfishness and that's what I was talking about. I was very shocked at what I saw going on and decided to share my story. That's all. I wasn't complaining about my job. I wasn't whining about dialysis patients.

Thanks for understanding what I meant.

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Or:

Ok, I charge an extra $10.00 an hour for maid service - CASH and in advance!

I'd charge them $50 an hour for putting up with them. In advance. And $10 per swear word.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

My guess is if you really add up all the work we do, we probably should be earning about 40-50 bucks an hour. Gosh, we are so severely underpaid for the stuff we do and put up with.

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Specializes in ED/trauma.
For the first time in my nursing career I am working at a corperate owned and run hospital and I have to say that if this is what hospital nursing is coming to, then I'm glad I'm leaving bedside nursing.

I've worked in for-profit hospitals in the past, but locally owned and managed. I've also been treated abusively by nursing management and hospital administration before and don't trust the 'suits' are far I as can throw them.

My experience of corperate hospitals is that nurses are generally treated as laborers, not professionals. The attitude of administration seems to me to be paternalistic.

Anyone else out there have feelings in this regard?

Yup... but this also stems from my belief that healthcare should be a non-profit industry (which I've saved comments for on another thread). In any case, I am working at a for-profit hospital and find that we actually do a pretty good job of caring for out patients as patients -- not just customers.

On a slightly unrelated note, I have to comment on this... We have a new CEO. He's been making rounds throughout the hospital, saying hi to everyone. I saw him a week or so ago and didn't know who he was. He came up to me yesterday, though, and greeted me, told me who he was, asked who I was -- very casual, arm's length sort of greeting. It seemed so... fake to me. But maybe I'm just jaded.

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