You All Need To Read This!

[Ross]

http://www.rd.com/content/night-shift-nightmare/

I don't know how many of you can relate to some of the things that this article talks about, but I sure can and it's part of the reason I'm paranoid of hospitals.

"Patients have called 911 from their beds because they thought nobody was there."

Less-than-conscientious workers find it easier to go unnoticed at night. Cornell Morton, a mechanic who suffered disfiguring burns over 35 percent of his body in 2003, spent more than three months in a burn unit at a Houston hospital. He remembers one night nurse roughly waking him, which was especially painful because of his excruciating condition. Adding to his anxiety was the burn unit's policy of no overnight visitors, so he could not be comforted and protected by his wife. "I was totally paranoid every evening, dreading that nurse would walk through the door."

 

[Phyllis]

As Dick told the residents gathered around the nursing station on the day of his dismissal- "I just want to make sure I'm going home today before you people kill me!" He spoke from experience as a lawyer with a few malpractice suits under his belt.

 

[Bina]

I had a day nurse give me the wrong meds.....she got the bed number mixed up. Good thing I was nervously checking everything and noticed her error. She didn't seem to care at all.....

My hubby stayed all day (15 hours) every day for 16 days.....he was exhausted, but I was too scared to be on my own.

My late Mom was a kidney transplant patient, you don't even want to know what happened to her all those years in hospitals. We could write a book!!

 

[Ross]

This is exactly why I tell people going to surgery make sure someone stays with them. I don't care if the hospital doesn't like it. If my wife had not been my advocate in multiple circumstances and had been there, I'm more then sure I wouldn't be here today.

I can't tell you how paranoid and scared I was when the sun went down and visitors went home. Things do go on when no one is around. Try being on a vent and not able to breath. You dropped your call button and it's out of reach. The only thing I could think of to do was pull leads off my chest and set off the alarms on the monitors. Even then, it was a good 15 minutes before anyone showed up to check on me and by then, I was desperately trying to sit up and get out of bed. I don't want anyone to have to have an experience like that. I can tell you a few more, but this was the worst.

 

[Nancy]

I couldn't even finish the article it brought back terrible memories of Joe's ICU experiences at one local hospital. Overnight, he pulled out his feeding tube which had been very, very difficult to insert and they couldn't get it back in. On another occasion, overnight, he climbed out of bed and fell on the floor. His nurse said she had to go to the bathroom and there was no one to relieve her. Where her supervisor was, I'll never know. She certainly could have used the bathroom in Joe's room, since he wasn't using it, and she would have had complete privacy, since no one was around.

This was in the ICU which was supposed to have one on one or one on two ratios.

It did not, they were running it like a regular floor with one on 5 or 6, and patients in remote locations from each other. And they had one tech (I think) overnight for 35 patients

I spent many sleepless nights in that ICU just making sure nothing like that happened.

The two nights I couldn't be there were the nights that these things happened.

I ranted and raved, wrote letters, had meetings with the head nurses. Didn't make a bit of difference.

No one cared.

I also had to listen while a sweet young thing nurse gossiped for 20 minutes (I timed her) about how her female patient didn't want her to do personal care, and she was grossed out. That's how much time SHE was wasting, and the one she was gossiping with as well.

Also listened to a woman crying in pain because her automatic blood pressure cuff wouldn't let go, that went on for at least 15 minutes.

I couldn't leave Joe because I was doing all the things that others should have been doing and weren't.

I really should write them up and report them to the State. I don't know if I have the energy.

It was atrocious and very, very scary.

They were a rudderless ship, never saw any management until there was a problem, then they came running to try to do damage control.

 

[sue943]

That is horrifying. I must say I am amazed when I read articles like that; I would have expected American hospitals to have been very efficient due to the litigeous nature of many Americans.

Having been an inpatient in five different hospitals over a period of eight months with a total of nine admissions I only had one bad incident, but one which was to have catastrophic effects on my life. The first hospital of the chain was the one which caused my health problems and the subsequent necessity for all the other admissions.

 

[Nancy]

Bottom line is you HAVE to have someone be there with you. AND you will have to buck the rules with some pretty nasty bulldog types. Hospitals today cannot be trusted, no matter how glamorous they look on the outside. It's the same old, same old.

No one cares for you like your family and friends do. People in the medical profession get burned out, and then some of them are downright lazy and worst case scenario, ill tempered and mean.

Oh, and by the way, if you think all those alarms mean anything to anyone, think again. They hear them all the time, and even when the worst alarms are going off, they may or may not come and see what's what. They get too used to hearing them. Alarms mean nothing. Joe had long runs of V Tach. Didn't mean a blessed thing, except to me. The monitor was turning red, it was alarming so loud!

I will say this. The bad things that happened happened only at one local hospital. The other hospital had the best heart ICU you could ever want. Nothing was left to chance, and there was someone right there when things were getting dicey. There was ALWAYS someone watching patients at the other hospital. I didn't have to stay there. I knew that patients were being taken care of properly. AND their supervisor was right there and kept everyone in line. No one was hanging around gossiping. They were working every minute.

 

[Ross]

Bottom line is you HAVE to have someone be there with you. AND you will have to buck the rules with some pretty nasty bulldog types. Hospitals today cannot be trusted, no matter how glamorous they look on the outside. It's the same old, same old.

No one cares for you like your family and friends do. People in the medical profession get burned out, and then some of them are downright lazy and worst case scenario, ill tempered and mean.

...And that's the fact Jack!

 

[Bina]

Before my hubby would leave each night, I had him tie the call button to the rail and move the phone closer to me.....there's not much else we could do.
I can't even imagine being stuck there on a vent.!!

My Mom had convulsed one night (alone), and smashed her face on the side rail...My Dad arrives early in the morning and she has broken teeth, a split lip, and a bleeding nose; it honestly looked like someone beat the cr*p out of her. It took forever to heal.

Another one: My Dad takes a break to go the cafeteria, a young newbie physiotherapist comes along and decides that my Mom should sit in a chair for awhile....My mom was deaf and could not understand what was going on.
Dad comes back a short while later and Mom was barely conscious, there was a pool of blood on the floor around the chair.

 

[Nancy]

With bedridden patients, when they want them to sit in a chair, you really have to watch out. They will leave them there for HOURS, even when they are uncomfortable.

They would put Joe in a recliner chair when he couldn't breathe unless he was sitting bolt upright. He also had a rectal tube and a catheter and a bedsore. None of this mattered at all! He was going to sit in that chair whether he liked it or not, and whether he was in excruciating pain sitting on the bedsore, rectal tube, catheter and not being able to breathe.

I just don't know when common sense comes into play. I guess for some institutions, it never does.

If the "no-show" doc orders it, then it has to be done. What does he care, it's not his lungs or butt.

Yes, yes, I know this is all done in the name of keeping things moving and avoiding worse problems, but there are other alternatives for people with compromising problems.

People who know how to think outside of the box are a tough commodity to come by. And brains sometimes are too.

 

[Bina]

That's right Nancy....they have this "sit in the chair" rule; even if it almost kills the patient!

 

[KAJ]

Thanks for sharing the link Ross!

I can definitely relate. I had some problems with nurses after my pectus repair at a Naval Hospital at the age of 22. I wanted badly to reach out and slap a couple of the ICU nurses.

Fast forward to my AVR. I also had problems with a night shift nurse at UAB. That was the night I told me my poor exhausted wife (who is a RN) to go to the hotel for the night to get some sleep. She had been with me for six nights straight. I cannot remember the cirucmstances but the male nurse was not responsive to my concerns and needs. I felt like crap already but felt crappier and cappier (if there is such a word). When my wife came in the next morning, the first thing she said to me was "what happened, you look terrible." I then told her about the nurse from hell.

I went back in the hospital (24 hours after returning to Florida). During one of the first few days, another nurse did not give me the Heprin drip after she gave me a Bolis. My wife was there for the Bolis. She left and came back a later. She asked me if I was given the drip and I stated "no". A few moments later the cardiologist asked the nurse where the heprin drip was for me. After I found out it was to prevent blood clots, I nearly freaked. I asked my wife and doctor if this could really be a problem. They both down played it. Right after the doctor left, my wife went flying down to the quality assurance dept. to file a complaint. I later learned that my wife and the doctor where very concerned about the possibility of a clot, but of course, they did not want to upset me.

Botom line, people must have an advocate with them. I was just blessed to have a RN for a wife.

Karl

 

[Bridgette]

I can relate to some of this.

In NZ our health system is different to yours in the States. We have a public health system which every New Zealander has access to and which is funded by taxes. However it's the same old story - there is never enough funding for health (it is a bottomless pit) and consequently there are always staff shortages etc.
There is the option of paying for medical insurance so if the need arises you can have treatment at private hospitals, however medical insurance is not cheap and although some employers might subsidise it, this is not a very common thing. We were lucky that my husband's employers DO subsidise medical insurance for their staff.
I had my original op at a private hospital and was very well looked after - the staff and facilities were great and the staff actually looked like they enjoyed their work
However when I had an emergency op a month later to drain pericardial effusion it was done at the public hospital, and what a contrast. Tired, grumpy demoralized overworked junior doctors and nursing staff trying to look after way too many patients. The ward was awful - dirty (the bathrooms were disgusting) and crowded - I was in a 4 bed room and the other 3 patients were men not very ideal for privacy.
At one stage I was all swollen up with fluid - my legs were twice their normal size and I asked the nurse if she could get the doctor to prescribe something, "just when you get a chance" I said, quite reasonably I thought.
She snapped that she was much too busy and that "the fluid will go away eventually when you get up and about". Then she stormed off
I waited till the shifts changed and asked another nurse - she was a bit kinder and got the registrar to have a look and he prescribed some Lasix which of course did the trick
I don't know what the answer is....we just need a better public health system which is fairer on staff and patients but of course it all comes down to the money.

 

[hensylee]

after any major surgery you have to walk, right? after the last one I had, they got me up and I was in great pain and couldn't walk. They had me on a 'push when you want relief' med (dilaudid) and I was out of my mind from it and couldn't communicate to them about not being able to walk becxause my hip was in such great pain; they had somehow injured my hip during surgery and I was hurting when I walked so I said I wasn't walking anymore and they actually LISTENED and left me in bed all day every day and never turned me at all. I was so drugged I didn't know I was injured so I just couldn't communicate to them at all. Naturally pneumonia was next and I nearly died. I even remember wanting to........

 

[Dennis S]

My experience:

My experience:

Reading this thread makes me very grateful for my hospital stay at Abbott-Northwest in Minnesota. They brought in a bed so my wife could stay comfortably, 24X7. They had a little kitchen where she could get things like cereal or toast for either of us. We never waited a full minute for an answer to a call button-and when we accidentallydisconnected some "leads" three nurses literally sprinted into the room. We had free hi-speed wireless access, and an outside balcony we could walk to afterI felt like it. Our friends called it the "heart hotel". When it was time to go home, the car Barb borrowed from our son wouldn't start, and the parking lot guys got it started, again no charge. I guess I didn't know how good I had it till I read some of these other experiences.

 

[Lynlw]

Reading this thread and the article reminds me of the thread on the sig other forum months ago when we were talking about how important it is to have someone there with you as much as possible especially overnight and you should ask for a cot if they don't offer a foldout chair or cot. We all hope and pray that we or our loved ones have the best care when they are in the hospital, but this shows why it is so important to have someone there AND more important if the patient or loved one think there is a problem you really have to speak up, until someone really listens and not worry about being polite or not being a pain.
Lyn

 

[Rich]

That article brings back a lot of memories, mostly bad ones.
The day after my valve surgery I was laying in the ICU all doped up. This young nurse comes over and asks me if I would like to get up and sit in a chair. I was so out of it I guess I said yes. Then she brings me a steaming hot cup of coffee and sticks it in my hand. It also was with caffeine which the surgeon said I was not too have. Then my wife and daughter showed up. There I was sitting in this chair, gown half off, tubes and wires twisted all over the place, and it was freezing in there according to my wife. She went to get the nurse but there was no one at the ICU desk and no one at the main desk either. This went on for a couple of hours. Where were they? Sitting in the cafeteria having a blast with each other. I can't print what my wife and daughter had to say to this young lady, but according to a friend who is a nurse at the same hospital, this person was removed from th ICU.
And all this at the best hospital in the state of Michigan. SCARY!!
I could go on and on about some of the horrible experiences my wife has had also.
Rich

 

[Sagebrush]

St. Mary's in Rochester MN

St. Mary's in Rochester MN

I had great nurses that I can remember....I was so drugged up!! I only had one mean ICU nurse, she was gettting mad at me cause I wouldn't wake up. I told they hubby but he thought I was teasing and laughed at me. I loved the male ICU nurse I had most of the time, Glenn, he was great!!