I have read many different postings on various boards here where nurses seem to think it is OK for patients to wait for hours for pain and nausea medication. Well, it is NOT OK. Just because some other patient has a "life-threatening" ailment does not in the least justify having someone in agonizing pain and/or nausea lying in misery for hours. Many of these so-called "emergencies" that get triaged to the top are lifestyle-induced from obesity, smoking, drinking, drug abuse, and reckless driving. On the other hand, certain other illnesses in which the patient suffers severe pain are NOT due to lifestyle factors; they are random misfortunes that the patient did not create.
Nurses and other health care workers (excluding those who are solely private pay) are obligated to serve the public, and that means patients and their families and visitors.
I have read that one of the jobs of nurses is to "educate" patients about their disease and to provide emotional support and counseling about managing their illness. Funny thing, but when my loved one was in the hospital they received zero support or information from the nurses. All of the information was from the DOCTORS and the Internet.
Let's just go into this padded room for a moment...settle down now.
Doglover, the reason you are paying so much for a hospital room and getting so little is because those hospitals make billions of dollars in profit per year, and spent millions figuring out how to cut expenses from already bone thin budgets. So when a cardiac arrest comes in there is no one extra left to take care of people that are not actively dying.
We are professionals in a professional environment. We are not waitresses or cashiers at Walmart. This is not Hotel where everyone can come and gab and have immediate bar service................
:chuckle :roll This is Motel 6, you copy? Come on over to Motel 6 now. We'll even leave the light on for ya! :roll :chuckle
You are right, hospitals and ERs are not hotels; they charge several times more per day than even luxury hotels but fail to provide timely, effective services for their Customers.
I've read numerous postings where nurses angrily whine that hopsitals are not "the Hilton", etc. That's right, a room at the Hilton typically costs in the $100-$200 range whereas a hospital room starts at $1,000/day. It seems to me that nurses and other hospital employees have an obligation to deliver superior services than hotels.
Why is it that hotel operators fielding hundreds of calls each day typically answer their Guests' phone calls on the 1st to 3rd ring whereas patients often wait and wait for someone to answer their call bell?
Then maybe you should go to the Hilton next time?????
This is a cruel insult. My family member got sick over the weekend, and I called the doctor on call who phoned in pain meds to the pharmacy, and I rushed out to pick them up. The pain persisted, so first thing Monday morning we showed up at the doctor's office and he prescribed anticonvulsants (trigeminal neuralgia pain is said to be WORSE than cancer pain). Still no relief, so back to the doctor on Wednesday who prescribed yet another medication. Things continued downhill so on Thursday evening after seeing two doctors in person earlier in the week, calling the on-call doc over the weekend, and trying various prescriptions my family member asked to be taken to the hospital. They were there for 4 days because they were so debilitated and dehydrated they needed IV's. They were also close to bedridden with pain for weeks afterwards.
It is CRUEL to imply that a "trip to the doctor's office....would have proved faster relief" but yet another example of the lack of compassion and lack of medical knowledge among the nurses we encountered.
Dave what can you give me for severe nausea? Doglover I understand that you had a very bad experience however you seem to want to rag on the world and nurses in general for some reason. Believe me I understand pain from experience I would still rather suffer with my pain even if it was to save the life of my overweight, smoking, drinking father or anyone else like him. Treat my pain and treat it as promptly as you can but not at the expense of someones life regardless of who they are what is wrong with them or how they got that way. Please do not consider entering the medical profession until you seek some serious phsyc help. Dave waiting on that nausea med as I am really beginning to feel ill at the thought that someone may actually believe the way the op states.
Sleep? Its been a couple of weeks. So yea, I'm a little cranky.
Secondly, (ya'll get ready for this one). I will AGREE with Doglover that a suggestion of a trip to the doc's office would have been better. Neurogenic pain is horrible. It looks horrible, and I can't even imagine how bad it would be to actually have it. If your family memeber isn't getting releif from oral medication, then it is certainly time to consider parental medication. Dilaudid is comming to mind.
Nursing did not sound like they provided bad care in this instance.
Does anyone else think we are going to get any productive ideas out of this thread, anything else you want to discuss?
also thinking that closing down would be best
I vote to close said thread due to inability to help doglover with the problem doglover presents. We read the thread, posted our thoughts and suggestions; now it's up to doglover to carry out the suggestions given here. To continue to listen to the battering of nurses doglover offers is pointless...except for doglover. That's my thoughts on closing said thread.
Nighty night all! Dave get some sleep ol' buddy! :kiss :zzzzz :zzzzz :zzzzz
canoehead, BSN, RN
6,909 Posts
Dave, do you need a time out?
Let's just go into this padded room for a moment...settle down now.
Doglover, the reason you are paying so much for a hospital room and getting so little is because those hospitals make billions of dollars in profit per year, and spent millions figuring out how to cut expenses from already bone thin budgets. So when a cardiac arrest comes in there is no one extra left to take care of people that are not actively dying.