While my Granny was on the hospital I noticed that all if her nurses take nearly fifteen minutes to respond to any call. While sitting with her through the night she began violently vomiting. I pressed the call button, asked for her nurse and it was nearly an hour before she strolled around and asked if the vomiting had stopped.
Another example: at 20:00 she said a doctor had ordered antibiotics, a pain killer, and a bp medication. She gave the pain meds, and never administered the other drugs.
How do I go about getting another nurse? This is a serious danger to My granny's health, she'll die of a heartattack before the nurse gets around to giving bp meds.
Specializes in Professional Development Specialist.
You called and talked to "someone" and they told you what you wanted to hear. If your gma said she had chest pain things would have been different. She would not die of a heart attack while the nurse did nothing. You have no clue medically, if your grandma can get better care at home, take her to yours. Move on.
Specializes in Infectious Disease, Neuro, Research.
Also, use your common sense- It tells you not to tap on the glass at the zoo, right? Why would you bang on the nurse's station?
Quite. Primates do throw their poo.
SoCal, don't sweat it. Yeah, if you continue your ed, you are on the way. Family members do get excited, sometimes its something, sometimes its nothing. Dunno, can't say. If you continue on in healthcare, remember this interchange, and realize the importance of communication and education. The RN or the MA/AUA/CNA should have had a couple of minutes to offer some education as to why things were not necessarily that serious.
The RN is/was ultimately responsible for all of her patients, and was (we hope) legitimately occupied with something more serious. The aide shouldn't have their d**n a** in a chair if a light is on. Period. I was one, and so may freely make that criticism. Me, 1 RN, 21 post-op & med-surg patients. BTDT.
Edit: Not picking on you, Lynx. My wife(RT) and I've been on both sides of this situation. She with her granddad, post-op, with spontaneous dehissence and obvious evisceration; me(diabetic & NPO at the time) when someone hung a bag of NS, instead of D5, overnight. We well understood what was happening & still had to light a fire. Equally, I've entered rooms with irate pts, and generally been able to calm them with listening & some education.
Specializes in Peds, PICU, NICU, CICU, ICU, M/S, OHS....
We were on a Cardiology CCU, (not a stepdown unit) thats why when she started vomiting I was ****** no one showed up, and the CNA (who was on FaceBook, sitting all but fifteen feet away from Granny's open door) didn't do anything either. (Didn't even look up from her computer screen)
She was admitted for abdominal (bowel) pain with heart palpitations. (She's also labeled as a high stroke risk because of her heart, she's had several "mini-strokes" in the past because of her hear palpitations) ["mini-stroke" is the term the doctor used]
I'm sure this nurse did have 5 or 6 other patients, but she's on the cardiology ccu floor... you'd think she'd put a fire behind response to things that cause your heart great strain (ie violent vomiting)... Maybe that's just me, but again, I'm not a nurse...
Now it is "violently vomiting"? She was admitted to a unit bed for belly pain, a CCU bed at that? I am really questioning this entire thread. Just doesn't seem right to me.
IF she was in the CCU, maybe that nurse had a patient on a bypass pump or someone who was having a massive MI, or even dissecting their Aorta. Vomiting can cause some strain on your heart, I guess. Usually it will slow it down due to stimulation on the Vagus nerve....but anyhow, maybe you should have posted these complaints somewhere else....I don't think you're going to get much sympathy for Granny here.
Also, is it possible she was given the meds and you missed it? If you were exhausted, etc...maybe you were sleeping, etc. when the nurse came in. God, I am so glad to be in Pediatrics and not in adult care anymore. These are the FAMILY members I couldn't stand to take care of; you know, those with the *******' notebook. Notebooks never scared me, in fact I find them quite funny. Regardless of how fast that nurse got there, how much puke she cleaned up, I almost guaruntee you'd find something else to get on here and complain about. Go find a patient advocacy board somewhere and leave Allnurses to ALLNURSES.
not sure that she was really in the CCU? I would assume telemetry which in my place of employment would mean 1:8.
Family members that believe they are the best advocate: honorary RN degree, they look it up on google so they believe that I should do my job the way google states,hold you to every word so you learn not to say too much, are really just trying to exert control over a profession they do not have the education on. They do not understand nursing and the responsibility. Not sure but was this the 10th episode of vomiting, did granny have a basin and some tissues? Is that why it was not the top priority. And as an RN you would not give a vomiting pt pills for their BP. The likelihood that the nurse was maybe waiting for the pain med IV to work so that she could assess whether her pressure would decrease if she were in less pain. This is what nurses go to college for and most families do not understand it and most nurses cannot stand around telling you what is in her mind. If you want you can request not to have that nurse again
vomiting can cause a decrease in HR and BP, thusly decreasing how much blood the heart is pumping out, the BP pill then would most likely not be needed at that point if she has been vomiting a lot.. in addition, if a patient is vomiting, the patient may not receive PO medications, could it be possible she was awaiting a call for a dr. to get meds changed to IV because she had vomited so many times prior and would not keep those medications down if she REALLY needed them? Or maybe they already were given IV and you didnt notice, or you were in the bathroom, or busy criticizing every other thing going on.. maybe the first dose was given TOO close to the scheduled next dose. You don't know all the possibilities that could be out there. In one statement you said the nurse knew she was vomiting, unfortunately a BIG part of nursing is PRIORITIZATION and if you were on a CCU, which I'm not sure that is actually the case because I'm not sure why you would but abdominal pain in a CCU unless they were bleeding or had a AAA, there could have been a CODE BLUE, a silent code, someone SEVERELY injured, someone trying to pull out all their lines keeping them alive. Even behind the desk, to you, the nurse may not look busy but believe me WE ARE. The amount of charting is unbelievable, the NURSE has to make sure every single itty bitty piece of the puzzle is right, that the dr. didnt make a mistake, the pharmacy didnt make a mistake, the other patients are ok and not dying and ultimately that she didnt make a mistake, as well as deciding when to call a physician, call other departments, call patients family, find 5 minutes out of the night to just go to the bathroom or EAT as well as do our own damn work.
If the door was open (since the OP says she saw the tech on FB), then the nurse could probably HEAR that Granny was no longer vomiting. And since she had family at bedside (who I presume would notify someone if it was a continued problem), a no-longer-vomiting patient is not a huge priority. Sorry, they just aren't. If she had recently had pain meds, those often cause nausea/vomiting so a single episode of vomiting is barely a blip on my radar, especially if I have other patients whose problems might actually be life threatening.
As far as the meds not being given, my bet is that the pharmacy put them in as 0900 meds, so the nurse has absolutely no control over when they are given. The pharmacy has no idea that Granny usually takes her BP meds at 10 (PM I assume?) They would put them in as 0900 and it would be given the next day, unless the doc ordered a NOW dose. Same for antibiotic...was probably scheduled for the next morning.
If the OP does pursue nursing, she will surely learn about prioritization, ABC's, etc. As uncomfortable as vomiting is, it is truly not high up on the "life or death" priority list. I mean, what can the nurse really do, pat her on the hand? The family can do that. (Unless vomiting is severe of course, then the doc would be contacted for med orders...but that was not the case here, and even if it was, the nurse would not be in the room anyway.)
Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.
Such lack of compassion for the sick grandmother and worried granddaughter. At least it's clear who the enemy is.
The enemy is ignorance.
This thread is not showing lack of compassion. It's showing reality and critical thinking - questioning what seems to be suspect in a story that just doesn't add up. Sorry, but you're not going to come onto a forum named ALLNURSES, say that nurses suck, and not get some negative feedback.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Such lack of compassion for the sick grandmother and worried granddaughter. At least it's clear who the enemy is.
I wonder how much searching this person had to do in order to find and then resurrect a two-month old thread, just so they can get in a gratuitous nurse-bash.
Why don't the nurses simply apologize and make amends for the delays they subjected the grandmother and granddaughter to, and then move on to improving customer service? Waitstaff at busy restaurants routinely handle several tables with multiple customers with multiple orders. Why can't nurses learn by the example of the food service and hospitality industries? They set a good example.
Great idea, for my next shift, I'll put just the same amount of thought into administering my medications as Taco Bell puts into making my bean burritos. After all, they forget my extra onions, I forget someone is allergic to penicillin, it's all the same.
JenniferSews
660 Posts
You called and talked to "someone" and they told you what you wanted to hear. If your gma said she had chest pain things would have been different. She would not die of a heart attack while the nurse did nothing. You have no clue medically, if your grandma can get better care at home, take her to yours. Move on.