I haven’t been here in awhile and I’m sorry. My family has been dealing with the dying process of a dear sweet soul.
Before I begin, regarding HIPAA considerations, I have the necessary permissions to divulge information.
The better part of the last 3-4 months have been consumed with dealing with the ramifications of the very poor nursing care an older relative has received in a hospital here in southern California. Afterwards I wasn’t really surprised to find that particular hospital’s CMS satisfaction score to be 79%. In fact I have to say that may be too high a score.
Maybe I’m too much a part of the old guard, but I believe that nurses should always care for their patients in a manner they would want their own loved ones cared for. (This goes above and beyond what we might accept for ourselves.)
Nursing is HARD work both physically and emotionally!!! And you will NEVER be paid what you deserve. So I find it unacceptable that some nurses look for ways to cut corners.
My loved one was an 82+ year old man who was beating Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He developed some atrial fibrillation and had a syncopal episode and fell. He spent several days in the hospital getting his heart rate controlled. And he spent that time IN BED on a general floor. He’s been incontinent for 12 years following prostate surgery. This hospital doesn’t allow diapers because they cause bed sores. Guess what— he got bed sores anyway!!!!! (Ever hear of turning patients every 2 hours???)
About a month later he developed an infection (UTI) with a high fever, increased dementia, and inability to get out of bed. He was hospitalized again, and the doctor was ready to discharge him after a few days, but found that he had not been walked and was still unable to get in and out of bed. He transferred him to the TCU/Rehab where he was to be walked 2-3 times daily and in and out of bed as much as possible.
Guess what???? They don’t allow diapers there either and because he’s incontinent they refused to walk him. One nurses aide would go find a diaper and get him up when he was assigned to her. Then she’d take the diaper off when she put him back in bed. WOW!!!! Someone actually had some common sense!!!! Unfortunately she was only one person and she risked being SCREAMED at by the very UNPROFESSIONAL unit manager. This same manager who ripped bandages off of my loved one to have another nurse take photographs. No compassion, no caring — how did she become a nurse and WHY did she become a nurse??
My loved one then ended up going to a SNF for over 5 weeks to have some PT and try to get back to his previous level of functioning. He never did…
Imagine the cost to Medicare for all these days — because we don’t allow diapers in the hospital (WHY???!!!) and the LAZY nurses use this as an excuse to leave the patients in bed!!!! Poor nursing care causes bedsores—not diapers. And poor nursing care lets patients deteriorate to a point of no return!
The physician had written orders that he was to be walked daily and they were ignored. If there would be an investigation by the DHS or Medicare— that’s Immediate Jeopardy and they could face huge fines and even closure for this unacceptable level of care!
Some people just shouldn’t be nurses!!!! If you don’t have compassion and you arn’t willing to work HARD… please do something else!
3 Comments
Shahrul Azfar Adam
You know what, when i read this post, i really mad, how come that kind of nurses is exist in this nursing career, sigh.
FancyScrubs
That is so sad to hear…
Orfyn RN
I know of a similar situation where an RN of the old school had her mother as a patient in the hospital where she was employed in the OR. There was an incident that could only be characterized as nursing malpractice. When the RN tried to pursue the matter, she was blown off by the unit manager, when she requested copies of chart, was threatened by nursing execs and HR. She wound up resigning, getting a job elsewhere, and filed complaints with Medicare, JCAHO, and state licensing board for hospitals. It has been three years and basically nothing has happened. These matters drag on forever in the bureaucracies. I would also have to say that nursing does not attract the caliber of individuals that it used to, women have so many better opportunities available to them now. Some of the best nurses I've seen nowadays are second career men and women, who come to nursing from other backgrounds.