pushing hospital beds around

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oh my god! how do you nurses do it? i volunteered today, and a nurse asked me to move a patient to a room, and i kept bumping the poor guy into walls. its a lot harder than it looks! how do i carefully steer the bed into the right direction? do i stand on the side, or behind the patient or near their feet?

please, help. i dont want to bump another patient into the wall

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Specializes in dialysis (mostly) some L&D, Rehab/LTC.

Hang in there you'll get it!:clown:

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Specializes in M/S, Peds.

Get help to move the beds. They are heavy and unmanageable by themselves at times. I hurt my back in October 2008 pushing a bed by myself. Be careful and it will get easier!

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Specializes in med/surg and Tele.

Beds do have what is called a steer function. This locks the wheels at the end where the patients feet goes. Doing this makes them more managable and easier to steer. Never the less, you will still steer off into a wall or something.

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oh my god! how do you nurses do it? i volunteered today, and a nurse asked me to move a patient to a room, and i kept bumping the poor guy into walls. its a lot harder than it looks! how do i carefully steer the bed into the right direction? do i stand on the side, or behind the patient or near their feet?

please, help. i dont want to bump another patient into the wall

Practice with grocery carts! :D They don't steer well, either.

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

DON'T DO IT. I've been disabled for 10 years because I did it one more time

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Our beds have a "steer" function. It works wonderfully. It works like a forklift does where you steer in the back but the front two weeks are free going. Some people don't need the "steer", but if I have a patient it makes it easier, if the patient has any IVF and I'm by myself it is a necessity. We just built a new hospital, but kept old beds for the old part ... if your bed is old you probably have the steer function, but it's probably long gone. If that is the case, practice makes perfect (and for larger muscles to steer better with). Just make it fun for the patient. I always tell people, "Please keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times" like they do at amusement parks, and then admit that you failed stretcher driving school after you run into your first doorway / wall. As long as you don't run full force into the walls (hehe, I just imagined myself doing that), you should be OK.

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"Make it fun for the patients."

I do the same thing. I tell the patients, "This is just like Disney. Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all time; do not exit the ride till it comes to a complete stop." They always giggle. I've been known to remind them that I AM a woman driver, and I can't count how many times I've told a patient (or someone standing in the hall lol) that I got my driver's license on a K-Mart Blue Light Special. :jester: The patients will generally forgive a lot of silly things if you can make them laugh in the process.

As far as driving beds, I will *not* drive a bed alone. If I can't find help, we'll send a man. I will occasionally drive a stretcher for a short distance alone, but our department is real good about sending 2 people to get a patient - even if it's just with a stretcher. It's not worth it to sacrifice your back in the interest of doing a 2-person job alone.

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Practice with grocery carts! :D They don't steer well, either.

I do agree with this! Grocery carts always go sideways where u dont want em!

To OP: get help, and have someone push for you while u steer the bed.

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oh my god! how do you nurses do it? i volunteered today, and a nurse asked me to move a patient to a room, and i kept bumping the poor guy into walls. its a lot harder than it looks! how do i carefully steer the bed into the right direction? do i stand on the side, or behind the patient or near their feet?

please, help. i dont want to bump another patient into the wall

i agree that there should be two people pushing a bed, and that comes from 4 decades of nursing resulting in chronic back and neck pain. but the other big issue is that the op is a volunteer! pushing patients in beds (especially without having had moving and handling training which would have told her not to push a patient in a bed alone!) is not in the remit of being a volunteer, is it? this poor girl was being used and abused when the nurse really should have called the patient transfer team, or the orderlies, or at least a second person who did know how to move patients in beds. bless you for being a volunteer, kraam, but don't hurt yourself in the process.

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Specializes in ER.

If you must drive a bed go slowly to make it easier to steer, and if you do hit something it will be a low speed collision. I usually tell the patients that we will see how many people we can take out between source and destination, so they know we'll hit something. I agree, make sure EVERYONE has fingers and feet inside the bed/stretcher, even if you take a second person just to corral them. I've been nursing a long time and 9/10 times I scrape a wall or doorway. Don't try to move anyone with just muscle if the wheels aren't turning. You'll be sure to strain a back muscle (I have, and it isn't a happy shift when that happens).

If you are a volunteer moving a bed isn't worth the risk IMHO.

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Patient beds have become almost un-pushable by one person. There are many more obese people these days, so beds have become sturdier and heavier.

I always have help pushing.

I weigh 100 lbs, the beds outweigh me by a good margin.

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