Terrible visitors - Unsafe situation

[abbaking]

We had an incident on my unit a few nights ago where the visitors of a patient were demanding everything under the sun and more. The family demanded a private room. Our entire hospital has semi-priavate or 3 bed room - No privates. The family had NUMEROUS visitors (up to 10) for this patient who was in the first bed. Although I was not caring for patient in question, I was assigned the patient in the second bed - I literally had to force my way past big heavy sweaty bodies to get to my patient. No respect at all - excuse me sir - Nothing! The family was overbearing and middle eastern - giving me and everyone else dirty looks and invading personal boundries.

Cut to an hour or so later. I am charting in the nurse station. Our charge nurse is being verbally berated by 5 or 6 of these individual - Complaining about everything. "She (patient) is getting terrible medical care - Noboby know how to do a job - You guy will kill her - yada yada yada". At this point I saw the situation escalating and I paged security to our unit along with the house supervisor. Long storu short, we had to play musical beds - transfer some patients into other rooms so that these idiots could have a private room.

When I told my charge nurse that it was I who had paged the house supervisor and the security department, she blamed me for "Dramatizing" the situation and I had over-reacted. I am sorry people. I have worked in facilities where situations have escalated VERY QUICKLY into physical violence. Better to be safe than sorry - Most often a show of force is all people need to realize they need to cut the crap. I have your back - I would HOPE they would have my back if the tables were turned. What am I missing here?

[oramar]

I think you did the right thing.

[gtoko]

I can see your point about things escalating, however, your charge nurse is the charge nurse for good reasons, i.e experience and knowledge. I would think that this is not the first time she had been in a situation like this...,just saying.

I would also hope that if you were the nurse taking care of this patient that your charge nurse would absolutely have your back.

[Keepstanding, ASN, RN]

you absolutely did the right thing ! wow, i feel so sorry for the other patients in the room. you advocated for them and that was a good thing ! don't second guess your self, you were right

praiser :redbeathe

[mickey_RN]

Maybe the charge nurse felt that you thought she couldnt handle the situation?

I also have a tendency to be very sensitive about handling my own problems, even when I am drowning and I need a flotation device...

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

That definitely warranted a call to security.

I haven't ever worked at a hospital where there wasn't some type of visitor policy in place - usually it's 2 visitors at a time. Granted, if the family is being respectful and quiet, most of us will usually let it go if there is a roomful of people, but if i can't get across the room, then I clean house, regardless of whether or not it's my patient. It's a pure safety issue. I will politely remind the crowd of visitors that we can't have that many people in the room at a time and show them to a waiting area and ask them to take turns visiting in smaller groups of 2 or 3. If they don't like it, they can leave. I'm not here to serve them, i am here to advocate for the patient and trust me, i've been there - no one wants an entire clan at their bedside when they are trying to rest.

[mamamerlee, LPN]

Whenever there is a large group/family, someone needs to ask them to assign ONE person as the speaker, and only allow that person to ask the questions.

You did the right thing, though, by making those calls. In fact, the supe should have been notified the first time you needed to squeeze past the visitors and had trouble.

[Nurse Joey]

I can see your point about things escalating, however, your charge nurse is the charge nurse for good reasons, i.e experience and knowledge. I would think that this is not the first time she had been in a situation like this...,just saying.

I would also hope that if you were the nurse taking care of this patient that your charge nurse would absolutely have your back.

I don't know. I've seen charge nurses hired right out of school because the facility needed an RN. I'd say you did the right thing. Its better to have security and not need it, then to need security and not have it.

[LinzyRN]

You did the right thing! My manager would have had security escort them out if they were behaving that way on my unit. Some people just have no tact nor respect for personal space.

[dcarriv]

all the house sup did was reward their bad behavior. you did the right thing in calling security, but instead of barganing with them, they should have been booted out of the hospital, maybe with police assistance.

[PedsAtHeart, LPN]

I think you did the right thing, but Im wondering why you pointed out in your post that this was a middle eastern family? Did that influence your decision to call security? And if not, then why point out that out?

[LACA, BSN, LPN, RN]

I think she was pointing out that they were Middle Eastern because they might not have understood why the room wasn't private and that may have been a factor in why they had so many people in the room. Middle Easterners tend to have large families and they are usually fairly close. Just a thought.