hate hospitals
Joined: 24 May 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Sat May 24, 2003 7:10 pm Post subject: Surving a Hospitalization
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My last hospitalization was so bad I didn't remember it until just now. What jogged my memory was, I was reading some posts, both new and old, where people described bad experiences they had when they were in the hospital. <
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>I remembered that when I was in the hospital it was like the doctors and nurses tried to take total control of my life. They acted like they owned me and I was to do exactly as they said. When I had asked the nurses a question, they would invariably say, "We'll have to see what the doctor has decided." It was like I had entered another world where suddenly I had no rights and everything revolved around the doctors' decisions.<
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>Add to this, I had some of the most burnt out acting nurses, I was afraid to be in their care. One hurt me repeatedly because he couldn't start an IV. And others had no idea what was wrong with me when I was having an allergic reaction to a drug and asked me if I normally have panic attacks. <
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>My hospital stay was a nightmare and I was never so glad to be released when I finally got better.<
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>I know many people who went into the hospital who got worse or died. <
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>Does anyone have some tips for how to protect oneself during a hospital stay? There are so many stories of patients who take good care of themselves with dialysis, but they go into the hospital and often don't make it out.
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aprnjam
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 85
Posted: Mon May 26, 2003 2:12 am Post subject: Re: Surving a Hospitalization
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One of the places that you are protected is in the hospital. If you have a nurse who does not treat you appropriately, first ask to speak to the charge nurse or supervisor and explain your complaints. Do your best to remain as calm as possible while you are explaining your complaints. I know that is the hardest part, when you actually want to reach out and strangle the person!!! If you get answers like, "Well, we're short staffed, etc." That is NOT an excuse for poor care! Even if they are hiring new graduates, it is THEIR responsibility to ensure that they can perform the basic clinical skills (e.g., starting an IV, changing a catheter, etc.). If they can't so these tasks, well, they need to go back to school. There is a big difference between book smarts and clinical smarts! <
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>If you feel that you've been given a "run around" answer, pick up the phone in your room and call the operator, and ask to speak to Risk Management. This is the department that handles all the complaints against the physicians and nurses who are associated with the hospital. The only thing that makes your stomach flip and makes you nauseous more is to get that letter from the State Medical Board or the State Board of Nursing that has CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL stamped across it. The Risk Management Department is the hospital's equivalent of the Board of Medicine or Board of Nursing. If you have treated a patient inappropriately, been disrespectful, made too many attempts at trying to start an IV, etc. You will be called on the carpet by Risk Management. Too many complaints to Risk Management about you, that you can not explain after an investigation, and boom, you are out the door, or you lose your medical privileges at the hospital.<
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>In this case, you won't be dumped, it has nothing to do with the care you receive in the dialysis center. They are NOT allowed to share information about complaints received by any patient. So this is one area that you are safe.<
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>You have rights in the hospital and make sure that you use every avenue available to you to resolve them. This doesn't even have to occur when you are hospitalized, you can do it now. If you feel that you had a burnt out nurse, call risk management. We all know there is a nursing shortage, but there are ways of scheduling your staff so that the staff doesn't get burnt out. What happened to you needs to be reported to Risk Management at a minimum. If you were having an allergic reaction, this is a life threatening event, and they were ignoring you for whatever reason. You may want to have Arlene put you in contact with an attorney to talk to about this.<
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>There are lots of people who go to the hospital and get worse and die. I've sent I don't know how many patient's to the hospital for a minor infection only to find that they "developed complications" and died. This is where advocacy comes in.<
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>Use your contacts in the hospital, you don't have the fear of being dumped there. Contact Risk Management. If you remember the nurses name, you can even call the Board of Nursing for your state and report them for inappropriate care. You have a lot of avenues open to you. Use them. Don't stand by and let it slide. Fix the problem, I know you can do it!!
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Great Information
Joined: 29 May 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Thu May 29, 2003 6:12 am Post subject: Surviving a hopitalization
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It's apparent that abuses occur in other areas of medicine too as patients are in a one down position and don't know the proper channels to complain.<
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>When I went through this situaion last year I called in the head nurse and she did call in Risk Management. RM sent a person to me in the acute dialysis in the hospital to hear my complaints and he filled in a report as we spoke. I told him I wanted something back in writing letting me know what action would be taken. I never heard back from the hospital though after that. <
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>I had a long recovery and didn't have any desire at the time to check up on it. How long does one have to go back and check up on something like this? I could find the date of my hospitalization. But even now, I can't afford alot of stress ( which I'm sure is why most patients don't follow up on abuses). I would need a lawyer that could handle it for me. <
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>In my case there was one abusive nurse, out of many that did an ok job. I was seen by a rotating shift of many nurses. Most were very grim acting. Only a couple out of the many were decently professional acting. Also there was a big lapse in asceptic among most of the nurses and the room cleaning service was terrible. There were two patients to a room, much blood from major surgeries and the cleaning service did not clean the bathroom between the two patients or keep the room clean. The other patient in a room had a large family and they were allowed to talk real loud and come in and out when I had just had surgery and needed to sleep. Plus the other patient would wake up at night screaming in pain. I asked for my room to be changed, but they would not do it. This was in a supposedly world reknown hospital. <
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>I would like to follow through on this if a had adequate support.
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aprnjam
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 85
Posted: Thu May 29, 2003 8:59 pm Post subject: You have up to
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two years to follow-up on an event that occurred in the hospital, so you still have plenty of time. In fact, once you made a complaint, you should have received a letter informing you of the outcome. Call them and remind them about it, and ask them the status of the investigation.<
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>Another option you have is calling the State Board of Nursing and filing an anonymous complaint, if you remember the nurses name. If you do not remember her name ask the Risk Management person what the name of the nurse involved. This website will give you the Board of Nursing for all 50 states, find you state, call and ask for the Complaint's Department.
www.ncsbn.org/public/regulation/boards_of_nursing_board.htm<
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>If you chose this option, a file will be opened on the nurse, the nurse will be notified of the charges, and the nurse will be given X amount of days to respond (usually 30 days). The case will be investigated by an investigator. Then then entire case, the complaint, what the investigator has discovered, and the nurses response, will be evaluated by a panel of nursing professionals. If found guilty, penalties can be anywhere from a fine to loss of licensure.<
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>I encourage you to follow up on this. I know that you are extremely tired and do not feel well, but these are phone calls that shouldn't take very long, and the feeling
that you will have by actually taking some action will make you feel better. Hang in there and don't let them get you down! I know that you're a fighter deep down inside, but you're just tired now. You can do it!!!!
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an incredulous reader
Joined: 30 May 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Fri May 30, 2003 3:34 pm Post subject: Nursing shortage
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After reading through some of your postings, I have a clearer understanding as to one of the reasons there is a nursing shortage. I had always thought it was mainly because of the money hungry attorneys and the "deserving" masses they have
ainwashed into believing that for every action there is compensation. I was right...and it is only going to get worse. When one is trying to do their job in a stress-filled environment, with patients watching and analyzing and critizing their every move ( with in their eyes), is it a wonder there are so many "grim looking nurses" out there? It is very difficult to be human with God-given faults when so many feel we should be super-human, simply because we are nurses or doctors and their is a price on our heads. Keep it up -- at this rate, socialized medicine will be the only solution.
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watching the story
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Sat May 31, 2003 11:40 am Post subject: what's fair?
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I don't think the original poster had $$$ in their eyes by any means. I think they were just very concerned about improper care. It's no joke or $$$ when your the one laying in the bed and given the wrong medicine. Or you don't get the medicine ordered. If the stress of the nursing job has become so stressful that nurses are making to many mistakes being only human then it's time for them to accept they have reached their limit and quit. It doesn't do anyone any good to be in an environment where there are burnt out parties. It's not good for the person burnt out or the people around them.<
>I have walked the stress line a few times myself.
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aprnjam
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 85
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2003 12:44 am Post subject: I am a nurse
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and all the while I was doing my job, I knew that I had certain regulations that I had to follow that were mandated by my state nursing license. Yes, I worked long hours, yes, I was tired, but to me, that is no excuse to give improper care or to be rude or disrespect a patient. <
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>If you truly love nursing, and caring for people, no matter how sick they are, then you care for them for the love of the job and the love of caring for the patient. You double-check everything that you give to the patient (medications, treatments, meal trays, etc) to ensure that the patient is receiving the correct treatment for the correct person. You do not slough on your job because you are tired or have worked overtime. You are not rude and uncaring to a patient, no matter how difficult the patient is, you are kind and caring to the patient. You NEVER walk into a patients room and speak to them with disrespect or rudely, no matter how tired you are, no matter how many hours you've worked that day. You walk in with a smile on your face and address the patient as they have instructed you to address them or by Mr. X or Mrs. X. You are not rude, you do not tell them you do not have time for them. You do what you were trained to do, which is care for the patient and listen to them. <
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>There is no $$ signs associated with it. It is very rare that a nurse is sued, unless there is extreme gross negligence. There are things that a nurse can loose their license for and these include: being charged with a felony, using drugs or alcohol on the job (but first they are put through a rehab program), negligence, abandoning a patient, stealing drugs/medications from their place of employment, stealing items from their employer. These are severe charges and if a nurse does these things, then, I think you would agree, they should lose their license. Usually, the disciplinary action from the Board of Nursing results in a fine, but most of all, the complaint serves as as "wake-up" call to the nurse and does wonders for changing behaviors. <
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>There is a nursing shortage, because good nurses take up the slack for those who don't truly "care" for the patient and are there because it is a job. Contrary to popular belief, nurses do not make that much money, considering the responsibility that we have. In some parts of the country, a registered nurse makes $20/hour. In some parts of the country, factory employees make more money than nurses. While that may seem like a lot to some, think about the responsibility that the nurse has. The nurse must know all the medications, their interactions, what side effects the patient may experience, and what to do should the patient have an adverse reaction. In addition to providing care to the patient, there is the mounds of paperwork that must be completed on each patient for each shift. You will see some nurses who document properly, giving all the information about what happened on the shift, and on others you will see, "Patient did well, no complaints" then you look at the med sheet and see the patient received pain medication twice during the shift. How could the patient do well, with no complaints, yet receive pain medications twice during the shift? To me, being tired is no excuse for not doing your job properly. Yes, I am from the old school, when a person went into nursing for the love of nursing, not for the money.<
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>The main reason we are experiencing a nursing shortage, is that nurses are retiring, and there are not very many people selecting nursing as a career. They realize they they have long hours, the job is very hard, and the responsibility and liability is very high. Yes, we are all human and make mistakes. But when we make a mistake, we could harm a person. We know this when we enter this profession. If the nurse makes the conscious decision to provide poor care, then action should be taken to ensure that this nurse receives some sort of disciplinary action to either stop the behavior or make the nurse realize that maybe nursing is not the field he/she should be in.<
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>Stress levels in nursing are high simply because of the job that we do. I can't even count the number of times I almost gotten into the patient's room, and then went back to the med cart to double check the meds one more time in fear of making an error. I can't even begin to imagine the stress of an ICU or other specialty nurse, which has to be even higher. When I became a nurse practitioner, the first two years, I lived with a knot in my stomach, wondering if I had done something wrong, had I hurt someone, did I order the right medications, should I have done something more? What could I have done differently that would have provided better care for the patient. At that time, I was working 14-16 hour days, 5 and 6 days a week and on-call 7 days a week. But I never, ever, treated a patient with disrespect because I was tired.<
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>I firmly believe that the nurse who is in nursing because they love nursing, will always treat the patient with respect, and will do their job to the best of their ability, as they were trained to do. I also believe that if the nurse can not adhere to these standards, then they should not be in nursing. This is solely my opinion and I do not mean to offend any other nurse that is on this board. I am a nurse, because I love nursing, and I love caring for patients. I give proper care, and will continue to do so for as long as I remain a nurse!
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BRAVO
Joined: 01 Jun 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2003 6:12 am Post subject: BRAVO!!
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BRAVO!!!
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aprnjam
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 85
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 9:56 pm Post subject: Thanks
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Thank you BRAVO! It's not very often that nurses get complimented for their views on nursing or dedication to nursing. It's like they say in advertising, one good recommendation will equal one good recommendation, one bad recommendation will equal 10 bad recommendations. The same holds true in nursing. The nurses who disrespect patients, and don't take the time to do their job properly because it takes too much time, are the ones you hear about all the time. You seldom hear about the great nurse who took care of you. If you happen to have
a great nurse who takes care of you, make her day, and thank her! I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to the nurse who really does care and is doing her job as it should be done!
