Speaking of Waste - Trash Wars

[Vito Andolini]

A post on another thread set me off on this topic of waste in the health care setting, so I figured to start a new thread. :)

I guess my main gripe is emptying trash when the bag is nowhere near full. Not only is it wrong, IMHO, for a professional nurse to have to empty trash or mop floors other than in an emergency, but to have to do it to appease your relief nurse really gets my goat! To add insult to injury, we have housekeepers who are paid to do this stuff, they just lack access to the Med Room when a nurse is not present. So why not make sure that nurse and HK get together at some point q shift? How hard is that? Or set the trash can outside the locked Med room door and HK can get it at their convenience.

It irks me to have to empty trash that I did not fill and it irks me to have to waste a plastic bag that is only maybe half full.

So how do you handle this at your place? :argue:

There are lots of little things that can add up. Using the last line on a progress note or blood sugar form and not replacing the sheet or putting the filled sheet into the chart - or give it to the clerk to file, seeing that there's no clean order sheet or whatever sheet and just leaving it like that, using the last of something and not replacing it - all kinds of stuff like this happens. How do you handle it at your place?:monkeydance::beer::smiley_ab:lol_hitti:cheers::msk:

[flightnurse2b, LPN]

I'm glad you guys don't mind. I still will not be emptying the trash. I have no problem setting the can outside the med room and letting HK pick it up on their next round.

Toilets? What's that about a cold day in hell?

our housekeepers do not touch anything with bodily fluids on it.

if the toilet/bathroom has feces, tinkle, blood or vomit in it or on it, WE are responsible for cleaning it up before contacting housekeeping to disinfect. i will put on some gloves, spray my virex and grab some towels.

[lpnflorida]

As needed and for sure before the end of our shift nursing empties the trash cans in the patient's room. It only takes a few moments. I use it as an opportunity to say goodnight to my patients and to make sure they are alright before I go and give report.

[Vito Andolini]

our housekeepers do not touch anything with bodily fluids on it.

if the toilet/bathroom has feces, tinkle, blood or vomit in it or on it, WE are responsible for cleaning it up before contacting housekeeping to disinfect. i will put on some gloves, spray my virex and grab some towels.

This is true in places I have worked, too. What is so awful about it, though, that a HK can't don gloves and spray Virex? Why is it ok for us to do it but not them? Our aides do the clean-up's, though. Maybe I'm too proud or maybe I just was not initially trained to believe my job includes housekeeping but I still will not be doing it. I manage to keep very busy with things only I, the nurse, am allowed to do. And I think I contribute my fair share of going over and above by helping with lifts and turns and by running interference for some of my female colleagues when they are being given a hard time by fams, pts, docs. If a mess is right before me, like pee, vomit, whatever on the floor and someone is going to fall in it, I will do the initial clean-up.

[catshowlady]

How 'bout this spin on it? Our housekeepers are unionized, and nursing is not *allowed* to empty the trash - it is a violation of the housekeepers' union contract. It gets really old when you have a pt in isolation with one trash can - it overflows, and we aren't allowed to do anything about it except wait for it to be emptied. Yuk.