Pt having a "friend" over for "special nursing care"

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You know what I mean. . .a patient having someone of the opposite sex (or the same sex! that's happened too) that they are romantically involved with, spend the night (thankfully in a private room) and performing overt sex acts, to the horror of the poor CNA who has to come in and fix her tele leads, which have obviously come loose from all the activity.

I was horrified to know that not only does my hospital not have a policy against this, but the house supervisor told me I was not allowed to tell them to stop! These are sick people here! I understand people say they have "physical needs," but can we draw a line somewhere?!

Or as I have heard it: "If Mama ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy!" :yes:

Yes! Yes!

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I knock on doors as a warning that someone is about to come in, not to ask permission. A private room means they don't have a roommate, not that the patient gets to dictate when the nurse is allowed to be in there. They can have as much sex as they can handle when I'm not there, but I'm not delaying care because they're trying to get off.

That is fine. What are you going to do when you come in and they are in the middle of doing what they are doing?

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Morasks, do you work in a hospital? Have you ever worked in a hospital? or on a telemetry unit? 'Private' rooms in a hospital are not that private. In fact, a new hospital here in this area has put in windows from the hallway to the patient room so that the nurses can see in while walking by… and the aid sits by the window and charts. There is NO PRIVACY. It's not a hotel.

Customer service is fantastic because you can sleep and recover in quiet with the door closed but still be monitored. Seriously, if a patient on Tele is having sex. Bye bye. Time to GO HOME because it is not appropriate. It's a very public place.

That's all I have to say.

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The problem here is that some here see sex as dirty, yes I'll concede there is a time and a place, my argument is that it is not ALWAYS up to me to decide this for my patients. In my scenario I originally thought of a pt quietly under the covers doing what they want. It is some of the people's colorful mind here who expanded to what amounts to erotic novels lol

No, there's a difference between sex as "dirty" and sex as not suitable for inflicting on others in a public space. Even if it's ok in a "private" room, it's not always in a private room. Can't remember who thought it was just fine if there was a curtain between the roommates. We've had parents call for staff to come to the room. And when they get there, after knocking, they walk in to find the parents having sex in full view of the door. But I guess since sex isn't dirty, we should be ok with that?

Sex is perfectly fine. I partake on a regular basis! I don't inflict MY sex life on other people though. I don't make others unwilling participants. Sex can wait. Maybe it is a "need" but it's not an IMMEDIATE need.

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Specializes in Trauma, Orthopedics.
That is fine. What are you going to do when you come in and they are in the middle of doing what they are doing?

And I think that brings us back to the point where they shouldnt be doing that in a hospital in the first place for this reason.

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I recently had a pt on my acute med-surg floor that has been with us for at least 21 days. She's great lying down, but once she sits up for longer than 15 mins, things get all outta whack and she's got a good chance of syncope. She's healthy otherwise, with CKD 1 and well-controlled DM II. She and her husband have been together for over twenty years, she told me. Their anniversary was on her second week in the hosp. She had needs. Her husband had needs. They didn't suddenly take a vow of abstinence because their lives were completed upended and their usual forms of intimacy were suddenly, abruptly, cut off.

We are very careful to respect her privacy. She has a private room and we are careful to knock and give them time to answer. That isn't just her though. Every room, every pt, deserves the respect and privacy of the staff unless it's an SI/SH situation. We knock and wait for an answer. Policy. And y'know, I think that's a key part of nursing. Most pts have no control. They can't control the biggest thing in their life - their health. Their body. Its doing things they can't control, things often embarrassing and frightening and bewildering. So we try to offer them little bits of control, ways to cope with the fear and anxiety of hospitalizations. Like the (very radical apparently) idea of respecting their personal spaces. Barging into pt rooms for care or checks has little to do with care and everything to do with not messing with our routines.

That pt had "quiet time" with her spouse, and we were careful to respect that. It met their intimacy needs, strengthened their relationship in the face of this unknown struggle, and made her time in the hospital a little less harsh, impersonal, alien. People don't suddenly become asexual as soon as they are admitted.

And leads falling off over the space of a few minutes does not look like asystole. It looks like noisy signal and/or artifact, and a tele team that can't notice the difference is more worrying to me than two patients doing it like they do on the discovery channel.

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Morasks, do you work in a hospital? Have you ever worked in a hospital? or on a telemetry unit? 'Private' rooms in a hospital are not that private. In fact, a new hospital here in this area has put in windows from the hallway to the patient room so that the nurses can see in while walking by... and the aid sits by the window and charts. There is NO PRIVACY. It's not a hotel.

Customer service is fantastic because you can sleep and recover in quiet with the door closed but still be monitored. Seriously, if a patient on Tele is having sex. Bye bye. Time to GO HOME because it is not appropriate. It's a very public place.

That's all I have to say.

Are you sure you are going to kick the patient out of the hospital because of sex? I know for a fact that certain rooms are specifically designed for patient needs. And are roomed according to prioritization right? So, a nurse wouldn't put a critically ill patient in an enclosed room privately. Then invade his privacy.

My personal life is private. As in private.

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That is fine. What are you going to do when you come in and they are in the middle of doing what they are doing?

I'd do whatever it was I had come in there to do.

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The initial nursing care plan upon admission... should include the sexual needs of the patient during hospitalization.

It is an additional nursing diagnosis that needs to be addressed.

As with any nursing diagnosis.. we follow the nursing process to fulfill our patients needs.

We do this with all nursing diagnoses.. WITHOUT judgement.

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The problem is. It has already been judged :-)

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The problem is. It has already been judged :-)

Several times over.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.
The initial nursing care plan upon admission... should include the sexual needs of the patient during hospitalization.

It is an additional nursing diagnosis that needs to be addressed.

As with any nursing diagnosis.. we follow the nursing process to fulfill our patients needs.

We do this with all nursing diagnoses.. WITHOUT judgement.

Yep.

The nurses on L&D fully supported and even recommended sex to get things rolling.

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