This is not my job?!?

[Ally0981]

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:

[southernbeegirl, BSN, RN]

When I use a facecloth/towel for cleaning up poo off a patient or any other surface, I always dispose of it in the trash, as it is hard to imagine someone putting their face on it again even after laundering.

towels, sheets, blankets, pads are all meant to be laundered. bleach is used on them as well. linens are very expensive and throwing them away only costs the facility money which will ultimately cost the nurse at the bedside a raise or maybe another nurse that could have been hired.

i realize that some people cant imagine using a towel after it's been used for peri care but thats what they are meant for.

if you want to throw your own towels away at home go ahead..but you dont own those towels and they are meant to be laundered.

check your facility policy and see what it is on linens or ask your supervisor before you make the decision to throw something away that doesnt belong to you.

sorry for being so blunt but i've been on the other end of that and had to dig thru garbage to retrieve linens that staff had thrown away.

[hotmama2be]

NO ONE is above cleaning poop, if the patient had an accident don't make a big deal by calling housekeeping. How embarassing for the poor patient your job title does INCLUDE patient care and that does mean CLEANING UP POOP we all have to do it get used to it.

[truern]

In my experience, housekeeping staff don't clean up BM or any other body fluids. Nursing cleans the mess off the floor then housekeeping can mop it. due to infection control practices, they cant mop up poo in one room then take the same mop to the next room. we do the initial cleanup and they finish it off with chemicals. it's a team approach.

I was thinking the same thing as I read this thread. Housekeeping doesn't clean up "visible" messes....only disinfects after we've cleaned up the unsightly.

[Virgo_RN, BSN, RN]

I use washcloths and towels to clean up BM all the time. Ours get cleaned with bleach and hot water. I don't see what the problem is.

[chevyv, BSN, RN]

It may have been inappropriate for a student to delegate to paid staff, but I think it was clearly inappropriate for the people paid to mop the floors to refuse to do so. The OP's job was not to mop the floor. It was to notify the charge nurse that housekeeping refused to mop the floor. It should have nothing to do with being too proud to mop a floor, but a nurse really should have more important things to do. There is nothing disrespectful about expecting others to do the work they're paid to do. "It's everyone's job," sounds laudable, and often is. If I can do some service for a patient now, instead of waiting for an aide to find time, I'll do it. But I will not neglect my duties so someone else can goof-off. If it really was "everyone's job," the housekeepers could pass meds while the nurse was mopping the floor.

No, we all know the housekeepers would not be able to pass meds. Not in their scope or licensed to do so. Last time I checked, we didn't need a license to clean up bm. I do get what your saying, but I just think that the time it would take to find the charge, it could have been done. Our patient is most important. Why didn't the poster get the cna to clean it up? 'Cause they would have told her the same thing. Cleaning up is everyones responsibilty and I'm truly sorry if anyone feels like its not. Just one persons opinion here.

Poster never said she was so busy she was actually neglecting any other duties. I look at this as a learning experience. How will the poster handle this when it comes up again (and I'm sure it will)? To question how it should have been handled was great because we can all take some lesson away from almost every post.

[One Flew Over]

I clean up what I can, and ask the housekeepers to go over it again just to disinfect/kill any leftover smell. This happened to me yesterday. I apologize, but I would never leave something like that for over 4 hours. My resident would be humiliated (he already was to have made the mess to begin with, and apologized to me over and over). And god forbid a family member came in to visit. If you cared about the resident, next time please clean up the mess.

But I do agree that the housekeeper was very rude and out of line to refuse to do her job. And I hope she was reprimanded in some way.

[deyo321]

I believe in almost all facilities I have worked it is policy that nursing staff are required to do the first line of cleaning or linen rinsing and then ancillary staff takes over. In many cases if a housecleaner cleaned something I might then have to rely on her descriptive assessment. In all cases as charge nurse I found it easiest to lead by example. If LNA's saw me as willing to roll up my sleeves they were very likely to tell me thanks but we know your busy.

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Find out where the mops are.

[picurn10]

wow, as a fellow nursing student, I'm really disappointed in what your instructors obviously aren't teaching you. From day one we've been taught that the pts. feelings, dignity, and respect are top priorities. I can't imagine how a person would feel to have that mess left for so many hours because you were too good to do it. Granted, people makes mistakes, but if this is your attitude normally, I hope I don't ever wind up working with you.

All the great nurses I know still clean up poop when needed. It's not about what the exact discription of nursing is, but what provides the best care for the pt. and sometimes that means cleaning up poop so they feel treated with dignity and caring.

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

No, we all know the housekeepers would not be able to pass meds. Not in their scope or licensed to do so. Last time I checked, we didn't need a license to clean up bm. I do get what your saying, but I just think that the time it would take to find the charge, it could have been done. Our patient is most important. Why didn't the poster get the cna to clean it up? 'Cause they would have told her the same thing. Cleaning up is everyones responsibilty and I'm truly sorry if anyone feels like its not. Just one persons opinion here.

Poster never said she was so busy she was actually neglecting any other duties. I look at this as a learning experience. How will the poster handle this when it comes up again (and I'm sure it will)? To question how it should have been handled was great because we can all take some lesson away from almost every post.

You're quite right, of course. Really, the only point I'm making is that while it is the nurse's responsibility to make sure that the patient is clean and comfortable, the room is clean and safe, the ordered meds are appropriate and delivered by the pharmacy, it isn't necessarily the nurse's job to actually do all of these tasks himself/herself. We have to be able to rely on others to do their jobs, as well. In my workplace, I don't have access to the mops, so in spite of seven years of mopping experience, I have to call housekeeping if a room needs mopped. Cleaning up the bulk of the mess with towels, chux, or whatever is something I would do, or maybe ask the aide to do if I had other, higher-priority jobs waiting. Again, I don't say we should think of ourselves as "too good" for some of these "menial" jobs. But I have seen, and been, a new nurse who was too willing to "do it all," and it just doesn't work. In my admittedly limited experience, I've seen a lot more nurses make that mistake than those who were too lazy or too proud to do what needs to be done.

Last night, for the umpteenth time, I heard an aide respond to a call from the unit clerk, "I'm on break--the nurse will have to do some work, for a change..." I didn't call her on it, even though it always grates a bit to hear. Most of our aides don't share that philosophy, and she actually does do her job reasonably well, so I guess if it makes her happy to think we nurses are all overpaid prima donnas, I can handle that. She is entitled to go on break, occassionally. But if she wasn't on break and was assigned to me (as is often the case, my aide was wonderful) I would have to insist that she do her job, or take my complaint to someone with the authority to do something about it.

So, for example, if the aides are doing routine vitals at 0400 and one of my patients has a BP that is out of line, I'll find a cuff and check it manually. The aides are busy getting the rest of their vitals, and I feel there's no substitute for hearing them myself. A lot of times when the machine the aides use reads high or low, a manual read will be WNL. But if I see a pt not doing well and ask the aide to get an extra set of manual vitals, I expect them to do it now, because I'll be on the phone, paging the doc, and when he or she calls back, I'll need those accurate vitals. Even the grumpy aides understand this, but I would have a definite problem with one who refused or told me to do it myself. The people I work with regularly know that I will do it myself if I have time to, but I expect even the people I don't work with regularly--one floated from another unit, say--to do as I ask without a lot of lip, because I'm the nurse. Part of being responsible for every aspect of a patient's care means that what I say goes for every aspect of a patient's care. If I say a bed needs changed or a floor needs mopped, that's how it is, and how it has to be.

So, again, as a student, it may not have been the OP's place to delegate. Students should always be aware that they are guests of the facility. But as a working nurse, it will be the OP's place to delegate, and while that won't mean lording it over the lower classes, it also won't mean doing everybody's job yourself, either. And even as a student, being a guest does not equate to being a slave. Your primary function is to learn nursing. Making other people's job easier is a nice side-effect, but not your primary role.

[cherrybreeze, ADN, RN]

I read the whole thread too, and I'm confused...in the OP's second post, she said "of COURSE I cleaned it up, it just had to be mopped, etc," whatever, but in reading the original post, that was clearly not the case. I think the OP back peddled after reading the pages and pages of responses that did not agree with how she handled the situation. I also feel this way because, if it had happened the second way she said it did, there would not be "dried, crusted stool" on the floor for 4 1/2 hours. But I digress.

I have a HUGE problem with the phrase "it's not my job." Obviously, different titles carry different responsibities, and tasks must be delegated. HOWEVER, if I get a patient up to the bathroom, and they have trouble controlling their bowels and leave a trail on the way, I make sure it's cleaned up by the time they are on their way back to bed, and hopefully they never have to even lay eyes on it. That's both a dignity AND a safety issue. If a garbage can is full, I will empty it. I know our housekeepers work hard. If we have a discharged room that needs cleaning, THAT I won't do, it's beyond my scope, and I don't know the steps involved, nor do I have the time. If I'm waiting on a room to be cleaned and the housekeeping cart is outside of it, and I find out the housekeeper went on break in the middle of cleaning it and left it, I will complain to the proper person. But I will also cut them a break, because I know how busy they are.

Another problem I have with the OP was not only did she seek out the housekeeper to ask/tell them to clean up this mess (and, I'm sorry, I don't believe the second post about cleaning up most of it), she told her HOW to do it...that's even more demeaning. I would have been angry, too.

On the note of "it's not my job," I had a male student who in my first clinical rotation refused to bathe his patient....his reasoning? Since he was going to be an RN, you guessed it...that "wasn't his job." LOL. He didn't graduate with us. Imagine that.

[Scrubby]

ATTENTION....ATTENTION....THE POO WAS CLEANED UP BY THE OP. THEY DID NOT LEAVE A HUGE PILE OF FAECES ON THE FLOOR SHE JUST WANTED THE USE OF A MOP.

Please read this thread. I'm getting a bit tired of seeing people bang on about how the OP left a huge pile of poo in the patients room for 4.5 hrs when they aren't reading the entire thread. .Yes it's 11 pages long but to save embarrassment later on if your going to tell someone off then it always pays to have read everything :nuke: As for backpedalling and lying to cover up, i don't think there is enough information from their first and second post to actually accuse them of lying really..... One poster even said they feared the OP would never learn from this. Geez it must be really hard being perfect......

And um...this is a nursing student so go easy. Maybe they are not well informed on what to do in this situation. And (gasp) perhaps that's why they have posted here on allnurses so they can ask for some advice from experienced nurses...

I really can't understand why certain people on this site get their knickers in a knot when an inexperienced person doesn't do the 100% right thing. Nursing has a very steep learning curve, why make it harder than it has to be?

To the OP: if this is a problem with this particular patient then critical thinking tells me if he can't hold it in long enough to make it to the bathroom he needs a commode chair. I'm wondering why the nurses in this area haven't done this already.

A few years ago I also had a run in with a cleaner over the issue of poo. The patient did a splatter poo in the toilet bowl and the cleaner expected me to clean it up. If it was on the floor anywhere, in the patients bed, whatever then fine i'll clean it. But this poo made it to the toilet so as far as I was concerned the toilet bowl is the cleaners domain, not the nurses, i'm not doing it. It escalated pretty far to the point where the CNC became involved and I did not back down.I won the argument when I reminded the all that nurses do not go round the hospital inspecting each toilet for poo stains and cleaning them. The cleaners are there to sanitise the toilet bowls not the nurses.

I do not have a problem whatsoever with the phase 'it's not my job'. I have been known to say it when I need to. If you want to do the work of everyone, the ward clerk, the cleaners, the orderlies etc then fine that's up to you, I hope it gives you a warm and glowing feeling and makes you feel special. But there is a point where you have to say ' it's not my job to do this' otherwise they'll just pile more and more work onto you because your too willing to do what others should be doing. This has happened in our operating theatres where we no longer have theatre orderlies because too many nurses were willing to do their jobs so management took them away.