I'm so frustrated with people dumping their elderly family members at the hospital to spend the night with their ill family members!!! We have had a string of this lately, and there is nothing we can do about it, because they don't tell us that they are leaving! They will call up and "check on" the family member and not even ask about the patient! I'm not sure all that makes sense, so let me give you an example:
Elderly confused man is patient - he's not a full code and probably won't make it out of the hospital. His wife, who lives in a facility somewhere (not assisted living, a full care facility) comes in with the family to visit him. Fine. The family wants them to be together as much as they can, and are afraid he might die and she won't be there. Again, fine. BUT they all sneak out at night and leave the wife, who is not safe to be on her own, in the room! Then later they will call and say, "how's my mom doing, did she take her medicine? Make sure she eats her breakfast!" EXCUSE ME?????? In my opinion that is elder abuse, and I am tempted to take her down to the ER and let them decide whether she should be admitted or not, and what to do with the family! And the most recent one gets confused at night! We are too busy with our actual patients to be watching out for all these family members! I have no problem with them staying, but if they are going to stay and are not safe to be alone, they should have a family member with them. I would NEVER abandon my loved one like that - what if something happens? What if she falls??? We have told these people that we are not responsible for their family members, and that if they can't be left alone, someone needs to stay with them. The response is always the same - "oh, she'll be fine!"
I had the very same situation when I worked night shift and put a stop to it immediately. Husband was in for post ORIF. He was normally the wifes caregiver so the family thought it OK to dump Mom with us as well even though Mom was in early stages of dementia. She was also driving from her independent living apartment to our facility. Although she no longer stayed overnight she ended up there on day shift a lot "visiting". Guess what? She ended up taking a huge fall in our parking lot. She ended up being admitted too after that.
I explained to management that she had some dementia though I couldn't tell how severe it was and said "I wonder how we will stand legally if anything happens to her here"
Specializes in med/surg/tele/neuro/rehab/corrections.
The hospital could set up a policy that said family member could stay for such-and-such $ citing the nursing responsibility and the hospital could make money too! LOL! Once family members realize they would have to pay mucho dinero they will take family member home! :chuckle
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I have had similar things happen in my clinic. Once, on a dark and snowy evening, I was making rounds and found a woman in a wheelchair who did not speak English. I asked the few doctors who were left if they had her name to be seen, they all said 'no'. An African physician figured out her dialect and asked her why she was there and she kept saying she was waiting for her son and that was all. Didn't know why she was there. About 1/2 hour later, a rushed man comes into the clinc and started to wheel his mother out. I asked him who he was and why was she here. He says "Oh, I dropped her off so that I can go food shopping. I figured she'd be safe here". I even asked idiot if she has ever been seen at our hospital for any reason...he says "No, but if she ever gets sick, I'll be sure to bring her here.".
If I had a hammer, I would have bashed his stupid head in. It seems that this is not the first time he has done this...we were just the lucky clinic that time. Also, we have had situations where elderly, confused wheelchair patients were brought in by family members, left by them, and leave no name, phone number or anything else. One known culprit has been left with MILLIONS of pieces of paper with phone numbers (all either disconnected or do not know this woman). All of the chart information is wrong (they are illegal aliens). I dealt with this woman several times, and twice, I brought her to the social worker's office. Well, the last time this happened, a newer RN was working with me in the evening and when I saw that woman, I immediately knew there would be a problem. Told the charge nurse that she should call the AOD and social worker because this has happened before. She didn't want to do it, and again, we were going through these pieces of paper to determine how to reach someone. Again, no information in the computerized chart. I decided to call the AOD and social worker and then the charge told me she reached someone. To be honest, I believe we should have gone through with the social worker to show this family this should not happen.
Charge decided to stay with the patient until the family arrives, because she reached them by cell phone. I went home. She tells me the next day that she waited two hours, called back and the son says to bring her downstairs because he doesn't want to park. She says no because it is snowing outside (again), and the patient should not be exposed to the cold. He calls her from downstairs and says to bring her, she makes him come upstairs. Then, he calls again because he does not want to come off of the elevator. She walks the patient out into the hallway and suddenly, the patient stands up and walks quickly to her son, turns around and said "I can walk". She was so angry...I told her she should have gone ahead with SS because now, she wasted close to three hours for these inconsiderate orifices.
It's not anything new. I remember hearing a report about ten years ago that Toys R Us employees were sick of people leaving their kids in their store while they went grocery shopping "because the kids hated grocery shopping".
I just feel the whole financial mess we're in is because of spoilt, whiney, irresponsible people like this. You know, I can't afford a house like this but I'm gonna get one.........don't want to pay for childcare but I'll dump my kids at Toys R Us, Moms a pain in the backside so I know the nearest hospital will take care of her.............. yada yada..........
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
It's not anything new. I remember hearing a report about ten years ago that Toys R Us employees were sick of people leaving their kids in their store while they went grocery shopping "because the kids hated grocery shopping".
I just feel the whole financial mess we're in is because of spoilt, whiney, irresponsible people like this. You know, I can't afford a house like this but I'm gonna get one.........don't want to pay for childcare but I'll dump my kids at Toys R Us, Moms a pain in the backside so I know the nearest hospital will take care of her.............. yada yada..........
Some cases, whether economically or socially, should NOT be bailed out...
This exact same thing is going on on my unit right now!! An elderly gentleman's wife (who is confused) gets dropped off in the morning by family members and they pick her up at about 11:30 at night to take her back to her assisted living facility. The best part is that she's a wanderer, so our nursing supervisor (supportive of her staff, as usual) had the patient moved to a room closer to the nurses station so we could keep an eye on her and keep her from wandering, and had a bracelet put on her wrist saying "If you find me, return me to room XXX"
Insane! The bracelet should say, "if you find me, call the police and report my stinking family for dumping me at the hospital"!!!!!!!!!!
rn2bnwi, BSN, RN
295 Posts
At one of the facilities i go to i have seen spouses with dementia spend the night on several occasions, thankfully its never been a huge problem.