What part of "isolation" don't you understand?

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Just a little vent here.

I took care of a little girl in the hospital with pain and bloody diarrhea for three days. Sweet little girl. They did all kinds of tests, and when I had her, they weren't sure of the cause yet. We had her in isolation. The stepdad and baby at home had the same thing, but not as bad, so it obviously was contagious. Mom was taking care of the girl in the hospital.

The need for isolation was explained by various nurses, but the mom never got it. She never once used the hand sanitizer when leaving the room. She was constantly trying to go into our kitchen for ice or whatever, and we would have to run to head her off. She said she was "used to doing things for herself." It didn't help to explain we didn't want other patients to become as miserable as her daughter.

Near the end of my shift the mom came out of the girl's isolation room and placed the water pitcher on our nurse's station counter (Argh!) and asked for more water. The CNA said he would get some water from the kitchen and bring it to her room (as we never bring pitchers from pts rooms into the kitchen, isolation or not.) The mom said, "Oh yes, because we have germs" and she gave us a big eye roll.

Good thing my shift was almost over, I was ready to dump a jar of hand sanitizer on her head. :hdvwl:

Specializes in Staff nurse.

Before a patient is admitted to the hospital, the doctor should spell out expectations for family and visitors. Hand-washing is a MUST. Nothing returns to the kitchen for refilling or rewarming. You are not home, you are in a facility with many people coming and going.

Specializes in Staff nurse.

Here's another thought. In nursing school we washed our hands and dried them, then put them in a machine with specific lighting that showed how well or how poorly cleaned our hands were. Maybe we should have that as a public health service to show people the importance of hand-washing, that germs ARE really there even if not seen by us.

I am a nursing student and yesterday the patient I had for clinical had MRSA and was in isolation. The CNA came in to do fingersticks, she wore no gown and no gloves while touching the patient all over. She realized she forgot a supply and went directly into the clean utility room and fingered a bunch of nose bandaids out of their packages for NG tubes before choosing one. I can't imagine how many germs she potentially spread. I told the nurse, but no one did anything.

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