mmcelhi2

oh thank you JoAnna78, i mean i guess if i'm wrong i'm wrong, i don't mind admitting my fault, but in this situation i also think that it's not black and white and i'd rather be on the side of caution and save somebody than let them die and then have regrets about that.. anyways, i guess in nursing there are a lot of situations when you have to apply your critical thinking, when you are not quite sure about how to act, this is one of those.. thank you all for your advice!!..

comfort measures states do not hospitalize for life sustaining treatment, we were mainly sending him out for a general check up to see what was wrong with him, and he didn't have any strict do not hospitalize orders signed by family, only general recommendation to leave it up to a proxy/ family in case something happens, but since the family was not responding on the phone, what we were supposed to do, and thank you for your sympathy, i thought it was a little harsh also ))

Hey guys i have a really important question to ask, i have been working at this nursing home for a couple of years now and just got a resident who's 90 years old and has DNR orders in place, he's also comfort measures only, but does not have a specific Do not hospitalize order, anyways, this patient all of a sudden collapsed today, by collapsed i mean, he lost conscieousness all of a sudden, was lowered to a floor by a CNA, and when we checked him he was still having pulse and respirations, very labored, but his pupils were not reacting to light, anyways, he didn't quite code, but just had a very sudden change, so we sent him out to the hospital ER before we could get a hold of his family or doctor, i called them, but they didn't respond right away and it was a matter of minutes, we had to make a decision what to do. He'd have coded had we not called, anyways, myself and the other two nurses who were there just got suspended for calling the hospital, we are in CO, i was wondering is it legitimate? i mean i've never had a situation like this before, but i always thought that DNR does not stand for do not treat and i had a right to send resident out if something like this happened, but our administration says if his MOST form included comfort measures only we had no right to have sent him out unless the MD or the family said we should, but then the family or the MD were not answering phones !!! what do you do in this situation? i think comfort measures do say somewhere in the form do not hospitalize for life sustaining treatment, or something like that, i should have made a copy of it, but now i'm suspended. I feel it was the most unfair thing to do to us, i felt like we've actually saved a life, and the family had no complaints about it, so i dont understand our administration, does anybody have a similar experience?? i would really appreciate your advice!!