Your Safety

There are some great threads about this that have been discussed before. Of course safety is always something that you need to be vigilant about in hh. You are going into stranger's homes and you can be out all hours all by yourself. Look back at some of the past discussions about this. Lots of people had interesting things to say.

Hello all!

I graduate this spring and loved my home health rotation.

I would like to hear if any of you in home health have ever felt concerned for your safety about going to someone's house by yourself. How did you handle it?

I've been told that if I don't feel comfortable I should not go in and if I feel uncomfortable in the home, to leave. I have pepper spray on my keychain. So far, so good. I've heard some horror stories though.

Some of our nurses travel to very bad areas. One nurse was in a home and heard a gun right outside of the home. The patient asked her to not come back after that, for fear of her safety. I find people understand if your afraid, and do not want you in bad situations. I park close to the home, always go to a bad area early in the day( usually the gangsters are asleep ), move quickley , carry only small amount of money and wear no jewlery, carry pepper spray also.

Another thing to consider is that each home you are asked to visit should have been visited and checked out previously by someone in a more senior position.

If I am doing the admit, I am the only person to see the home, since I would follow patient. There are no "senior persons" who check our homes out first. But I do find alot of times homecare companies will not except a patient back because of their location, and we would call that a dump job.

Another thing to consider is that each home you are asked to visit should have been visited and checked out previously by someone in a more senior position.

You may be confused with private duty where the intake nurse or someone goes and interviews the patient, the family and checks into the living conditions. In HH the RN doing the admission is the first person to visit the home. We have to make a judgement as to whether or not we think we are going to be safe. I leave my purse in the trunk, no jewelry, no money on me. So far, Thanks be to God, no problems. Some of the kindest patients I've had were the ones in the worst neighborhoods. I just always make sure I go early in the day.

I have to agree. You have to kinda go by instinct: if you feel unsafe-don't go in. I have been in some interesting homes- takes all kinds I guess. I have never felt like my safety was in question though.

I worked a night shift at a client's house and someone tried to break in, the parents of the child I was caring for yelled at them to get them to run off. It worked, but it did not sit right with me that they did not call the police. I started looking for a new job after that night.