Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org (Frank Whitney) (05/24/91)
Index Number: 15806 >it wasn't a month gone by before they won it, and now nurses like me and >many others would just give their *eyeteeth* to get into even a part-time >position at any of these hospitals, but they're really choosy, and openings >aer few and far between. (I was just looking back on some of what I wrote, I >sure write LOOONG-winded sentences! :) Well, be talkin' atcha. As a quadriplegic who is at the complete mercy of the nursing staff and the personal care attendants I would like to know what are your feelings towards people like me when under a strike condition. From my own experience the nursing staff in rehabilitation hospitals generally are either the best or unfortunately the worst. I know that it is not easy work and if it weren't for the nurses nothing would get done. Also what do you think of nurses that work doubles consistently? When my wife was in the hospital the last time she was being cared for by a nurse that was working a double and she was really spaced out. My wife questioned the medication that she was going to administer and it was for the patient next door. Then on top of that the nurse replied "that if you would have taken it it wouldn't have hurt you." Well, my wife used to work in a hospital environment and the drug wasn't as safe as the nurse had said. That meant that in addition to making a mistake about giving her the wrong medication she also didn't know or lied about the effects of the drug. I have a good friend that is a nurse and I wouldn't want to have her working on administering drugs to me because I have seen out many mistakes she has made as well as her admitting to making mistakes because of being tired. Let's just say inquiring minds would like to hear your position on some of these facts. As I look back I also have written some very long sentences. Best of luck to you and others in your profession. Frank. -- Via Opus Msg Kit v1.12 -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!261!1000.0!Frank.Whitney Internet: Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org
Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org (Susie Lee) (05/24/91)
Index Number: 15808 FW> As a quadriplegic who is at the complete mercy of the FW> nursing staff FW> and the personal care attendants I would like to know what FW> are your FW> feelings towards people like me when under a strike FW> condition. From I have an idea I'll most likely be among the traitorous skeleton-crew who continue to work. I've been involved in and even encouraged nurses-aide strikes for unionization and taken on the added workload during my shifts without batting a stressed eye. (during feeding-times, I'd pull all six feeders around me in a powwow-circle, ferinstance, or go for the frowned-on double-padding ((as one under another)) to effect less time during incontinence-changes and still get to everyone. :) FW> my own experience the nursing staff in rehabilitation FW> hospitals FW> generally are either the best or unfortunately the worst. FW> I know FW> that it is not easy work and if it weren't for the nurses FW> nothing FW> would get done. Also what do you think of nurses that work FW> doubles FW> consistently? When my wife was in the hospital the last I think it's just begging for trouble, breakdown in the worker both mentally and physically leading to errors that can too-easily threaten the health-integrity and even the lives of their charges. No good, no matter how you look at it. Doing doubles shouldn't be tried certainly shouldn't be forced more than once a week. I oughtta know, I was notorious for it years ago, myself, but quit that and stick tight and fast to my own rule, now. And bad-apple nurses are sometimes hard to catch in the act being fairly good, most of 'em, about covering up their abuses or mistakes, but believe me, the rest of us hate 'em like the poison they are, just like the good cops hate having a bad cop in their midst, messing up a hundred good works with their one bad example! FW> friend that is a nurse and I wouldn't want to have her FW> working on FW> administering drugs to me because I have seen out many FW> mistakes she FW> has made as well as her admitting to making mistakes FW> because of being FW> tired. Let's just say inquiring minds would like to hear FW> your FW> position on some of these facts. As I look back I also State and federal laws and guidelines for medication administration are fortunately getting tougher. For omission-errors a facility can be fined $10,000.00 (that's ten-thousand) per day, and other med-errors are similary watched-for by weeklyor bi-weekly visits to facilities of a pharmacist-consultant, and in some facilities he/she is around daily. Most places these days are up against the wall with these threats to their business and are tightening up on seeing to a no-errors Medication administration and each doing more about it, in-house. One thing a facility-resident can do is bring their problem to the attention of the administrator or assistant adminiistrator who will swiftly look into it, and have the erring nurse either re-trained by another more exacting and dependable nurse, or observed for three days for bettering her technique or let go of (depending what the situation is). When I was going thru, nearly 17 years ago, my nursing school training, I had it comfortably drummed in my head "check labeling, dosage, method, patient *each three times*" That means read the labels three times and be sure, thrice-over what the heck you're doing each step of the procedure! I think some schools or instructors either don't stress this near enough, or the newly graduated quickly forget and fall into bad habits all too easily. Either way, those of us who really care and sometimes literally worry ourselves sick over our charges are happy each time we catch a "bad-apple" and put a stop to her or at least her sloppy practices. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!271!222!Susie.Lee Internet: Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org
Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org (Frank Whitney) (05/31/91)
Index Number: 15890 >it wasn't a month gone by before they won it, and now nurses like me and >many others would just give their *eyeteeth* to get into even a part-time >position at any of these hospitals, but they're really choosy, and openings >aer few and far between. (I was just looking back on some of what I wrote, I >sure write LOOONG-winded sentences! :) Well, be talkin' atcha. As a quadriplegic who is at the complete mercy of the nursing staff and the personal care attendants I would like to know what are your feelings towards people like me when under a strike condition. From my own experience the nursing staff in rehabilitation hospitals generally are either the best or unfortunately the worst. I know that it is not easy work and if it weren't for the nurses nothing would get done. Also what do you think of nurses that work doubles consistently? When my wife was in the hospital the last time she was being cared for by a nurse that was working a double and she was really spaced out. My wife questioned the medication that she was going to administer and it was for the patient next door. Then on top of that the nurse replied "that if you would have taken it it wouldn't have hurt you." Well, my wife used to work in a hospital environment and the drug wasn't as safe as the nurse had said. That meant that in addition to making a mistake about giving her the wrong medication she also didn't know or lied about the effects of the drug. I have a good friend that is a nurse and I wouldn't want to have her working on administering drugs to me because I have seen out many mistakes she has made as well as her admitting to making mistakes because of being tired. Let's just say inquiring minds would like to hear your position on some of these facts. As I look back I also have written some very long sentences. Best of luck to you and others in your profession. Frank. -- Via Opus Msg Kit v1.12 -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!261!1000.0!Frank.Whitney Internet: Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org
Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org (Susie Lee) (06/05/91)
Index Number: 15985 FW> >Now I know that sounds somewhat demeaning (to be an adult FW> with full mental FW> >faculties and be thought of as a baby of someone elses FW> Just because they're FW> >physically careing for them) But this mindset is about the FW> healthiest and FW> >best for the benefit of those needing looking-after. FW> >left out for conveniences' sake,etc. So, I joke, I kid FW> around, I make some FW> >of my people laugh or smile, but I Worry over them all FW> like a broody mother FW> FW> Well, the main thing is to make sure that they get good FW> quality help. FW> I personally don't want to be babied I just want to be FW> treated with FW> respect and a humane fashion. It's nice that you relate to Well, you're right, I have been and still do work in nursing homes (with an occasional half-year or eight months in a hospital to brush up on what I fell behind in) for the better part of twenty years. And for the most part, the humane treatment comes thru between my example and others on the staff who think of our people in a similar fashion. About the only times one hears the giveaway on the inner attitude on the caretakers is when something goes wrong, say for instance, someone falls thru someone else's inattention, and assusation comes out in a loudly indignant "What have you done to my baby!!" (I had to laugh recently when I heard it again, lately, in an exchange between aides when one resident had got a small scrape during a transfer from shower-chair-to-bed. I had once chewed out a supervisor in the same way when a confused favorite of mine wasn't watched closely enuf and had slipped and hurt herself before help got to her in time...WHoa, was I ever hot! Now that I'm supervisor myself, I see more than ever that there was no excuse for not checking frequently enough) well, anyhow! I think as long as there's no maudlin fawning or outright babifying as such, it's really basically for the best. Like you said, it's the quality of the care that really counts. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!271!222!Susie.Lee Internet: Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org
Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org (Frank Whitney) (06/17/91)
Index Number: 16084 My first bed sore was when I was in intensive care following surgery. I didn't know anything about bed sores so I requested that the nurse not turn me at that moment well that moment turned into 2 days and I got a bed sore that took 9 months to get rid of. It was 20 years before I got another one and that was again because I was following a doctor's orders that didn't know what the hell she was talking about. My wife called to say that things didn't look right to her but the doctor said that is the way it is supposed to look. That sore required 1.5 years to correct and to surgeries to get me back to where I could get back to work full-time. Believe me I really learned a lot from that experience. Now whenever I have to go into the hospital I have my wife check to see how my skin is doing. We try to leave nothing to chance. Frank. -- Via Opus Msg Kit v1.12 -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!261!1000.0!Frank.Whitney Internet: Frank.Whitney@p0.f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org
Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org (Susie Lee) (06/17/91)
Index Number: 16086 In a message to Susie Lee <06-01-91 16:13> Frank Whitney wrote: FW> My first bed sore was when I was in intensive care FW> following surgery. FW> I didn't know anything about bed sores so I requested that FW> the nurse FW> not turn me at that moment well that moment turned into 2 FW> days and I FW> got a bed sore that took 9 months to get rid of. Depending on one's physical condition at the time, these can sometimes occur even more swiftly than within two days. Many of the poorly-nourished (folk whom we can't Force to eat better and barely take enuf in to keep their souls on earth) or some of those with severely compromising conditions like a diabetic coma onset that happened to my second husband right outta the blue and had him in intensive care for two days, the first in that diabetic coma, had developed a three-inch-wide bedsore on the back of his head from the first tenhours of lying on his back which wasn't `uncovered' until the lifethreatening coma was overcome. But getting back to the frail and malnourished, they will also just-as-quickly develope these things within just as swift a timeperiod, if not sooner yet! For some of them, just the onset of reddened skin at a pressure point and it's almost already too late to halt the breakdown before the delicate tissues have a chance to heal.And so the `rule' is a MUST-reposition at LEAST every two hours, but that's stretching it for some, and about every hour to 90 minutes is really better. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!271!222!Susie.Lee Internet: Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org
Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org (Susie Lee) (06/19/91)
Index Number: 16235 FW> As far as the resident getting a small scrape during a FW> transfer, I can FW> see why you would get upset. Whenever I have to go into FW> the hospital FW> I'm always terrified that poor care is going to cause some FW> sort of FW> problem. I agree with you that the important thing is to FW> get the FW> proper care. I would rather have baby me and give me the FW> proper care FW> then to just ignore me and my needs. And so you understand perfectly just what I'd been trying to get at ! Yes, absolutely, the important thing from the resident (or sometimes victim's) point of view is the quality of care they're under and that comes in DIRECT line from the *degree* of careing by those doing the performing! (or supposed to be doing so) And one of the biggest and most insidious points of neglect that shows are what's known as bedsores or pressure ulcers. These happen when someone cannot move about and requires someone else to reposition them regularly when either in bed or in their chairs and have painful pressure ulcers develope at areas where the bone presses against skin. A true carer will see to it that these never get started beyond the red-skin stage at most. Someone who doesn't care as much will be content to leave their charges untended, say for instance on night shift from maybe 12 am until anhour before leaveing at 6am, by which time a pressure sore is well on it's way and Then requires many *more intensive* shift work-hours to attempt to get these healed. In this way a single lazy person being present just once a week can Make more work for all the others who may be on in the interim and care more truly. It's better and actually easier to prevent such things than to try to help get them healed once begun into tissue breakdown.Just another point of deep anger that we who Do care hold against those who show they don't by their inaction. And don't worry, those of us that do vent PLENTY of steam at those who don't, especially when we catch 'em at it! -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!271!222!Susie.Lee Internet: Susie.Lee@f222.n271.z1.fidonet.org