Super Obese

[anotherone]

in my unit we have had many super obese (500lbs+) pts. Most have been complete care. We only use lifts to get pts oob. it is very difficult to care for such pts because of the logistics and staffing requirements involved. Turning can involve up to 5-6 people. On night shift that might be all/most of the staff. If someone has to be cleaned up that could mean no other nurses or aides on the floor for other pts. And you have to wait for every employee to be available. Hope no other nurse is getting admissions or post ops. Actually lifting skin folds to clean is very exhausting. Depending on the staff working ,5-6 of us can weigh less than the pts. Yes ,I lift weights and the more I get into it , the more it helps but only to an extent. . It is a huge challenge to keep these pts clean and dry and staffing is not increased for it. I have never worked with any lift aside from the hoyer so I don't see how they can help with things like lifting up legs or arms for dressing changes. think a local hospital is rebuilding an area to add bari rooms to accomadate pts but the issue for me is the staffing required to care for such pts. I really hesitated on posting this because I can see it not being well received but I think this part of the "obesity epidemic" and its impact on health care discussed often enough.

[Clementia]

Sorry, but I can't resist.

"Glutinous" means "sticky, goopy"--think gobs of white rice left over at the bottom of the Chinese take-out box.

"Gluttonous" has to do with overindulgence in food.

While this woman's diet may very well be glutinous, I think "gluttonous" is more likely the term you were aiming for.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

One of the nurses in my ICU got a very obese pt on an insulin drip the last night I worked. Fortunately for her, he could roll pretty well by himself. The beds we have are very large. It can literally be difficult to get to a small patient if they roll all the way to the other side of the bed. However, this guy didn't have room to roll all the way over. I don't know how much he actually weighed, but I'd say it was likely over the 500 pound mark. I could have curled up in the fetal position and it would have taken two of me to match the size of his midsection.

The problem is that we have no hoyer lifts and only three rooms in our whole ICU have lifts in the ceiling. He wasn't in one of those rooms because they were all full. This is a BRAND NEW building. We literally just moved in this unit two months ago. I am still amazed that they didn't put a lift in every room. And even the rooms with lifts can only tolerate patients up to 550lbs. If we get a patient bigger than that, we have to call maintenance to get an extension or whatever for the lift - and there are only two of those available! I really hate the hospital I work for. They don't care about their nursing staff at all. There are a lot of reasons why I say that, but this whole only three rooms with lifts per floor and the lifts only being able to tolerate so much weight thing is a big one. There should be lifts in every room, period. There is no excuse if the facility is brand new.