Saturday 3 October 2009

Visitors from Hell

I found this on the net and thought it was funny.

Top Ten Visitors from Hades:

10. The man who snuck in three cats to visit his asthmatic mother.

9. The visitor who ate all his father's food, then rang the nurse to say that the patient was still hungry and needed another tray.

8. The wife who asked you to take her stroked-out husband to the bathroom whenever SHE really was the one who had to go.

7. The son who emptied his mother's colostomy bag into the wastebasket.

6. The husband who fell asleep in the patient's bed while his wife was in the bathroom.

5. The wife who discontinued her husband's central line herself, because “John likes to sleep on his right side.”

4. The 80 year-old daughter of the 98 year old man, who kept turning off her father's continuous gastric feeding because, "He never eats this much a home."

3. The children of one patient who insisted upon using their mother's portable IPPB machine as a scooter in the hallway.

2. The husband who kept sneaking in chocolates for his newly diagnosed diabetic wife.

1. The man who never actually visited his mother, but called twelve times every shift to criticize the nurses, the doctors, the food, and anything else that came to mind.

Here are some of my own additions to the above list: (details changed as confidentiality will not be breached in any way shape or form on this blog. Hospital patients and visitors up and down the country pull these stunts all the time every day. You do not recognise anyone here)

The man who thought that the only reason the nurses put a catheter into his wife was because they are "lazy" so he pulled it out with the balloon inflated and didn't tell anyone. Not only was there trauma but she went into severe retention.

The woman who brought litres of pop into her partner who was in severe CCF and on a fluid restriction. After we explained why this is a bad idea she continued to do it and they just hid the bottles.


The husband who shoved food into his wife's trach because he felt that we were starving her to death.

The daughter who messed with the pump and ran her fathers IV fluids in super fast because she thought that we were dehydrating him to death. The fluids that were hanging had potassium.

The man who punched his demented mother and called her a stupid bitch because she did not recognise him and peed on the floor. Prior to this he had accused the staff of being abusive towards her because the tea trolley girl gave his mum tea with sweetener rather than sugar. She was diabetic.

Anyone who doesn't understand that people with end state dementia do not want to eat and will not eat no matter how hard you try and accuses a nurse who is running between 15 of these patients as well as doing a 100 other things whilst being constantly interrupted of "starving gran to death".

The family who feeds their stroked out gran with no swallow reflex despite the staff telling them that this is dangerous. Then they want to sue the hospital when gran dies of aspiration pneumonia. She got pneumonia from the nurses starving her don't you know. Yep. It doesn't matter how many times you try and explain it, they just don't get it. It's actually very sad.

The visitor who takes the patient with fibrosis in the next bed off of her 0xygen and then places it on his gran who is being treated for a Urinary infection instead because "why should the lady in the next bed get something that my gran doesn't". Never mind that gran has o2 sats of 100% on air anyway and the lady in the next bed is now cyanotic. Our beds are very close together.

The visitors who call the asthmatic patient in the bed next to their auntie "a fucking noisy bitch" because she needed to be nebulised at night. Of course the poor asthmatic patient overheard them complain and was in tears apologising because of her breathing treatments being so noisy. The poor thing. I gave those visitors hell.


Management won't do anything about any of this and if we say anything to patients and visitors we just get flipped off. Hospital chiefs want to promote the customer is always right image, much to the detriment of the nurse's sanity and patient care.

That's all for now.

17 comments:

cb said...

A few years ago, I worked with a man who was admitted to a medical ward and whose family members used to bring him cans of Special Brew. This was particularly unhelpful.

Stneotser said...

I so wish we had visiting hours. Working in the US you'll have "visitors" that come in at 7am and don't leave till 10pm. No, they're not visiting anyone who is dying they're just snooping and scoring free food, soap and water.

Anonymous said...

Then theres the ones who think the "do not disturb the nurse during drug rounds" sign does not apply to them because they cant find nans slippers.

Oh and the "lets phone the ward during meal time, the nurses wont be busy then because everyone will be eating"

Oh and the "excuse me you cant bring children on to the ward" "what the fuck do you know youre only a nurse"

I love working with the public.

Nurse Anne said...

Yes the drug round ring causes me to fly into a rage. Our phone rings constantly at mealtime and it is a fair bit of a walk from the area where the patients are. Do they honestly think that we have someone to are for the patients AND answer the phone?

They put complaints in when no one answers the phone and then they complain when the patients aren't cared for. Most of the phone calls are a big fat waste of time since we cannot give any kind of infor whatsoever to anyone who is not identified as the NOK on the admission form.

We had so and so's neighbour from 20 years ago ringing every hour because " i like to see how she is".

Then they get abusive when you won't give test results over the phone. You shouldn't be asking or getting test results from a nurse anyway. What if that CT scan showed cancer everywhere?

Nutters.

Emma Rhoyde said...

Speaking as a visitor myself, I cannot understand how you keep your patience with them. I tried to do the right thing, not have too many family visiting at once, keep the noise down etc only to see a pack of chavs descend on a ward and cause utter chaos.

Some of the ones I spotted should have been steam-cleaned before they were allowed to come in. No wonder there are hospital infections...

They were constantly shouting into their mobile phones, eating, burping, wiping their noses on their sleeves, eyeing up patient's lockers and couldn't sit still for more than 2 mins without shouting "Why dunt they have smokin' rooms, I gotta go all the way out for a fuckin' fag, ennoi?"

The nurses haven't got time to be security guards, they were hassled enough as it is.

Nurse Anne said...

Most of our visitors are lovely and helpful. I feel bad when we cannot give them the time and and I know that we can come off as very cold.

But the few who are obnoxious really are out of control.

Ali said...

I have worked with visitors who have pinned me up against the wall , have spat at me, have been found curled up with their partner in their bed (who had a bit of abdo pain aged 20...)have given their relatives fags to smoke..and a lighter (in the bed...with Oxygen running....)I love the geneal public. Most of them to be fair are OK, and usually a bit scared, but there are those who I would gladly fling by the scruff of the neck onto the pavement.

PAULANN said...

I WISH I COULD FIND A HOSPITAL TO WORK AT WHERE ADMINISTRATION REALLY CARES ABOUT THE STAFF AND PATIENT CARE AND SAFETY. IT SEEMS THAT SOME SURVEYOR HAS MORE CONTROL OVER STAFFING THAN WE DO. ADMINISTRATION WANTS HIGH MARKS ON SATISFACTION SCORES BUT SAFETY IS THROWN OUT THE WINDOW SO MANY TIMES. I FEEL LIKE THE WORD NURSING SHORTAGE IS A WORD USED TO FULL THE PUBLIC. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE STAFF BEING CANCELED OR PUT ON CALL TO FATTEN THE STOCK HOLDERS POCKETS ARE MAKE ADMINISTRATION A BIGGER BONUS AT THE END OF THE YEAR.IF A NURSE GETS SICK SHE IS THROWN OUT LIKE A DIRTY DISH RAG WITH THE REST OF THE TRASH. I HOPE THERE IS A DECENT HOSPITAL OUT THERE WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT THEIR STAFF AND THEIR PATIENTS. I WILL BE A LOYAL EMPLOYEE AND SUPPORTER FOREVER.

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