kdecarl

Does anyone out there pull arterial sheaths s/p heart caths? Our Recovery room nurses do this and in a 4 month period...D/C'd 400 sheaths. Some ofour nurses now have wrist , fore arm and back problems and just last week, our top pullers were complaining of hand numbness/ thumb and joint pain. Our institution rarely uses closure devices and sheath pulling has been identified as a nursing duty. We are a unit of 14...6 of whom cannot pull sheaths anymore. I am afraid that we will cause permanent injury to the remining nurses. Thoughts?

I realize that this is an old post...but I have some questions about sheath pulling. My unit is a high volume cath lab.. and in the past 3 months, our nurses have Manually pulled 366 arterial sheaths, averaging 30 per RN during this time...Some of our nurses have stopped pulling r/t injuries ...hand and wrist pain, thumb numbmess, one nurse would vagal during pulls.. Our nurses are getting hurt. Has anyone else heard of this? Our MDs DO NOT and WILL NOT use closure devices.