PPE for dialysis nurses

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Specializes in Dialysis/ER/Med-Surg/Home Health.

I am a 17 year RN who has recently gone back to dialysis nursing after a several year break from dialysis and boy have things changed. For starters, I am at a small, rural chronic unit now. I am severely questioning how right things are in the way we use are personal protective supplies. We are getting new gowns soon to replace our disposable aprons. I understand that these gowns are reusable and in the past when this unit used comparable gowns, each employee was expected to launder their own. It was up to the employee to decide when it was soiled enough to wash in other words and then you have to carry the nasty thing out of the unit and take it home to where your family is and wash it in YOUR washing machine. Am I being unreasonable in thinking that this is a little odd? What can I do?:yawn:

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Not good! The unit should be laundering the gowns if they aren't disposable. At our unit (hospital based) we use a different washable gown with each pt and it gets sent to the laundry. If we get blood on our clothes, we are to put different scrubs on and send the soiled scrubs to the hospital laundry. We do wash our scrubs ourselves if not bloody.

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Specializes in Dialysis/ER/Med-Surg/Home Health.

The way that I understand it is that it is a cost issue. We are half hospital based and half private and they can't use the hospital laundry facility. Currently, we are using disposable aprons and they are re-used all day and just hung up on a hook during down time and then put back on when needed. Some nurses are using the same gown for days. Same goes for masks. No shoe covers are used at all. Who governs the rules for these kind of things? If I am not confused, when we get the new gowns, we will be issued one each.

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Specializes in SICU,BURNS,ACUTE DIALYSIS.

To my knowledge gowns are also required to be water resistent as well. Could just be an OHIO State board of nursing requirement though

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I am a 17 year RN who has recently gone back to dialysis nursing after a several year break from dialysis and boy have things changed. For starters, I am at a small, rural chronic unit now. I am severely questioning how right things are in the way we use are personal protective supplies. We are getting new gowns soon to replace our disposable aprons. I understand that these gowns are reusable and in the past when this unit used comparable gowns, each employee was expected to launder their own. It was up to the employee to decide when it was soiled enough to wash in other words and then you have to carry the nasty thing out of the unit and take it home to where your family is and wash it in YOUR washing machine. Am I being unreasonable in thinking that this is a little odd? What can I do?:yawn:

I think the PPE is an overkill. First of all ours don't have a place to put your pen, the material is paper and irritating. I don't wear it and will get written up but I like my own jacket and I take it home and launder it. I wear long sleeves because our patients are not clean, I have gotten bit by bugs on my wrists just to show you. I keep my body covered. Nurses in hospitals wear their own scrubs, right? When you work in the medical system you always have a threat of bringing germs home. YOu have to take precaution and do your best... that's all. Leave your shoes at work, change, take your jacket off before you put your jacket on, etc. Germs are everywhere, even in the supermarket.

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Specializes in SICU,BURNS,ACUTE DIALYSIS.
I think the PPE is an overkill. First of all ours don't have a place to put your pen, the material is paper and irritating. I don't wear it and will get written up but I like my own jacket and I take it home and launder it. I wear long sleeves because our patients are not clean, I have gotten bit by bugs on my wrists just to show you. I keep my body covered. Nurses in hospitals wear their own scrubs, right? When you work in the medical system you always have a threat of bringing germs home. YOu have to take precaution and do your best... that's all. Leave your shoes at work, change, take your jacket off before you put your jacket on, etc. Germs are everywhere, even in the supermarket.

I couldn't agree more......I I get so hot in those lab jackets...it's unbearable....plus puts the staff in a bad temperment.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

are y'all serious? I hate the hot, miserable, turkey-roasting gowns I have to wear every day ALL day but really. I would sure HATE to be splattered with blood. wear them. and get a new one every day. ours are disposable, long-sleeved, button down, long white jackets. i draw a little picture on my back every day to have some fun with it.

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I don't get it...really, the ppe. Okay we aren't supposed to put anything in our pockets? Well, where are we supposed to put out pens, etc? I have been wearing one around my neck....do you know how many times that thing has touched something disgusting? so a pocket is worse? I think it is one of those rules that if you want to wear it...fine, but the fabric is gross. I only wear it when the boss is on a kick, and I notice the few times she works the floor....guess what? no PPE. We don't work in a sterile environment. We run, not walk to get more saline, meds, water, etc...what ever the patient needs. So we are supposed to take it off and then hang it up to go into the med room, get out meds and how are we supposed to hold the meds and put the PPE back on...crazy! so if you do something for the days they watch, isn't that a bit ridiculous. We are nurses, not in kindergarten, we really do come to work clean, none of us wants to take germs home, or give them. We love our families and love our patients.

Time to get real. Maybe they can hire little maids to remove them when we walk in a room and stand there and wait for us to come out or the room and help up with it back on.

Think...that is all I would like people to do.

thxs:no:

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