Unit Secretary Abuse

[PowderedToast]

I have a situation in my hospital. A patient kept hitting his call light to the point of abuse. This patient just wanted someone in his room. Even when the staff would see to his needs, he would punch that call light as soon as or before they had even left the room. He wanted "his nurse". When the unit secreatry would ask him how could we help him, he sometimes wouldn't even answer her. After so much of this, she explained that there were several other patients on the floor that also needed assistance, so please let our staff know what we can do to help you. This did no good. After hours of this continuation...the unit secretary would try to judge whether or not he actually was in need. If so, she would page the nursing staff. If not, she would turn off his call light. This unit secretary of 20 years...with no other record of a patient complaint...is now on suspension and in danger of being fired because this patient complained to a doctor.

Needing some input here.....

[mpccrn, BSN, RN]

if the MD feels that strongly about it, perhaps he could have been paged every time the patient put his call bell on for nonsense. i do regrettable agree however, the US turning the call bell off might be her undoing....did she at least check with the patient first to see what he wanted or did she just turn it off from the desk without speaking to him/her?? that would be the key information required to put this issue to rest. patients that "needy" are placed at the nursing desk and babysat by anyone unlucky enough to have to stay at the desk (ie US or tele tech). it's not a great solution and i can't believe we haven't been told about it......but what else can you do??........maybe the MD could have written an order for a "one on one" and took responsibility for his patient's behavior.

[Irish Nurse 89]

Sorry to be a wet blanket here, but it seems like turning off the call light was the big no-no. I don't think that can ever be justified really. Please correct me if I read the post wrong. I feel for everyone involved. It's an awful situation for anyone to be in. Whoever was in charge should have handled it before it got that bad seems like to me. Hope all works out well.

I agree with you here. Although I do feel bad for the secretary that is involved in this, I think the charge nurse who put her in this situation in the first place should also share some of the blame.....

We have all been in this situation at one time or another, where the patient doesn't really need anything more than someone to be in the room with them. However, I personally have never just gone into a patients room without asking them if they needed anything, no matter how many times that the light has gone on.......Perhaps in a situation like the mentioned in this thread, what they should have done is set up a "call watch", where each nurse that is on the unit will take turns going into the room when the patient has rang the bell, and offered him/her some reassurance that everything was OK. Or moved the patient into another room with a roommate to talk to.....

There are no easy answers when it comes to dealing with a difficult, or demanding patient...... I really hope everything turns out OK for the secretary in this thread, and hopefully they can use this bad situation as a learning tool, and develop a plan for dealing with the next patient like this who comes along.