This is not my job?!?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am a student and my pt couldn't make it to the bathroom. Poop all over the floor. I went out in the hall and told a housekeeper staff member what had happened and asked her to clean it very politely. I also suggested a mop would be useful (wet poop). She caught the biggest attitude and asked me why I couldn't do it. I said if I had the cleaning materials I'd have no problem. Then her friend (male) told her to calm down, which made her even more enraged. Long story short, it took her 4.5 hrs to finally clean it up.

First of all, that really isn't an rn's job, or should I say priority. Second of all, that is why she gets paid, or a tech's job? How should I have handled this?:confused::confused::confused:

Most of us would clean it ourselves or clean most of it and then ask the housekeeping person to go over it with a mop. Here is an example of blank if you do and blank if you don't. Our facility was getting a super going over after the DON walked out just before the yearly inspection by the state. The place was tense to say the least. One day the new DON was following a new RN around with a clipboard. He had been caught the previous day giving 7 am meds at 2 pm. He encountered a resident who was inundated with liquid poop. Instead of getting a CNA to clean the resident, the RN just cleaned the resident himself. The DON fired him at the end of the shift. So you see, it makes sense not to let the poop stay on the floor for 4.5 hours, but you never know when cleaning it yourself will get you criticized or even fired. Blank if you do and blank if you don't. I wouldn't let it stay there for 4.5 hours. They can fire me for cleaning it :uhoh21:if they want to.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

My instructors would have hit the ceiling if we didn't do whatever was necessary to care for our patient and instead left something unacceptable like this on the floor for one second let alone hours. The truth is there is no my job vs. your job. Patient care is everyone's job and in the time it took you to find the housekeeper and have this unprofessional exchange you could have cleaned up at least a majority of the mess. Sort of smacks of the nurse that hunts up a CNA to put a patient on a bed pan. Please think about how the patient must have felt. :(

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both of these could have handled it better

the student was probably unsure about what is expected but keeping the area as clean as possible is the duty of all concerned and op should have gone the extra yard

the housekeeper was indeed hired to do this very duty and should not have backed off from doing an unpleasant job if the friend that talked to her was also a housekeeper than they could have both chipped in and got the job done quickly

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Specializes in orthopaedics.

we have a mess kit for such a thing. its got a scoop in it antbacterial cleaner, some stuff to pour on blood or liquid spills to make it easier to clean up and a biohazzard bag. there may be more to it it's been awhile since i've used it. anyway we use the kit or just towels and bathblankets, depending on the mess and clean up as much as we can. if we know it is going to be sticky, like pop or urine, we still clean up as much as we possibly can then let the experts go to it. :twocents:

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Wound Care.

You will learn soon enough that being a nurse means that everything that relates to your patient IS your job.

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I am a student and my pt couldn't make it to the bathroom. Poop all over the floor. I went out in the hall and told a housekeeper staff member what had happened and asked her to clean it very politely. I also suggested a mop would be useful (wet poop). She caught the biggest attitude and asked me why I couldn't do it. I said if I had the cleaning materials I'd have no problem. Then her friend (male) told her to calm down, which made her even more enraged. Long story short, it took her 4.5 hrs to finally clean it up.

First of all, that really isn't an rn's job, or should I say priority. Second of all, that is why she gets paid, or a tech's job? How should I have handled this?:confused::confused::confused:

You have cleaning materials...gloves, paper towels, waste bin, antibacterial wipes...leaving poop in your patient's room for 4.5 hours and waiting for housekeeping is unacceptable.

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Specializes in Rural Nursing = Med/Surg, ER, OB, ICU.

Many times as an RN I have done things I might not have thought I would be doing(such as cleaning poop off of the floor). The first mistake we make is thinking it is not our job. We are in this together. Of course I work in a 15 bed rural hospital where on the night shift there are a total of 2 RN's on staff and NO ONE else! I never think twice about whether something is my job or not, I just get it done. The patients need to be respected, and poop left on the floor is very disrespectful. The patients are everyones job.

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Specializes in Oncology, radiology, ICU.

I had a patient last night that had an accident all over the floor. After cleaning the patient and getting him safely back into bed I used the sani-wipes and cleaned the floor. I then called housekeeping so the room could be properly mopped with the proper cleaning solution.

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Could any of the "professional" nurses in this thread been a bit nicer to the OP, who is a student and not an employee of the facility she was at today?

Seriously?

Do you think one of you could have been just a bit less judgmental and a little bit nicer?

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A techs job?? From my understand YOU are the tech while you are the nursing student...I am also a nursing student, and in clinical, we do the Tech's job, we bath the patient, assist them with their ADL's...and I have cleaned many poop off floors, beds, and patients. I am also a tech, and I've had this situation, I get some paper towels, get up the big pieces, and then use a towel from the linens to get the rest, and THEN call housekeeping just to mop when they get the chance to make the floor clean again from what I can't get up without a mop.

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It's about time if we are really expected to do this that we don't get paper towels and towels that are going to be used for a patients shower the next day that we either

a) Get proper access to cleaning supplies, and have all the housekeeping staff fired, then recoup the money they receive in their wages (I'm sure I'd like an extra $8.50 an hour on top of what I'm already earning)

or

b) Have a real housekeeping staff that clean up, shut up about what isn't their job and are "trained" in cleaning up bodily fluids.

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Specializes in Hem/Onc, LTC, AL, Homecare, Mgmt, Psych.

Ok, I guess some of the replies might be a little abrasive. To the OP-- I'm sorry you had a rough day at clinicals! As if nurses weren't hard enough to deal with, now housekeeping was giving you a hard time! At least you know how the majority of nurses feel about this situation-- if you were on the job instead of in school.

I'd be curious what your instructor has to say about the situation.

Oh, I'm confused by the post I quoted below-- who uses paper towels to bathe a resident?

It's about time if we are really expected to do this that we don't get paper towels and towels that are going to be used for a patients shower the next day that we either

a) Get proper access to cleaning supplies, and have all the housekeeping staff fired, then recoup the money they receive in their wages (I'm sure I'd like an extra $8.50 an hour on top of what I'm already earning)

or

b) Have a real housekeeping staff that clean up, shut up about what isn't their job and are "trained" in cleaning up bodily fluids.

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