Idiot nurse

[Kamischke]

Partner and I are at a hospital for a discharge.I take the report and get all the info, ask if the pt has any iso's nurse says no. I asked again to make sure "You said the pt has no isolations, right?" she says correct. Then my partner even asks, does she have any isolations? nurse again, no. I should add that the pt. we were picking up was sharing a room with another pt.

Nurse tells us pt is on o2 via nc but we walk in the room and her cannula is not even on.

She also tells us the pt is a spanish speaker. What she spoke was definitely not spanish....

So my partner is fiddling around with her nasal cannula, gets it on her, we package her and we're good to go. We get to the elevator and JUSSTTT as we're about to leave,

nurse: Wait! dont leave yet!
us: Why?..
nurse: She has mrsa!
us: ................. you said she has no iso's.........
nurse: (while on phone) I was told just now!

my partner and i look at each other about to strangle this nurse..... partner had his hands all over the cannula and everything..

so we're in there for about a good 40 minutes because the nurse is making calls, going crazy, gets all the other nurses at the station involved.... and on top of that she tells us to just put the pt back on the bed..
we're like are you serious? isolation means u dont put the freakin pt in a room with another patient..

her response was this..........................

Nurse: She was in there all day, what could 1 more hour do right? haha

all the other nurses ended up taking over and told us to put her in a diff room.. we did and left.
dealt with some horrible nurses but this one had to be the worst.

 

[Minnick27]

If you've been in healthcare long enough you already have MRSA so there is no need for precautions. At least that's what a nurse had told me. I could not believe she said that

 

[Veneficus]

Would this be a bad time?

To tell you 20% of the population (1/5 people) is an asymptomatic carrier of MRSA?

Please control the outrage.

I am going to have to say that in this case, the nurse had a valid point.

You will find the higher your education progresses, the less absolute things become.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

If you've been in healthcare long enough you already have MRSA so there is no need for precautions. At least that's what a nurse had told me. I could not believe she said that

That is true to a certain extent. I mean, look at it this way, once you had the chicken pox as a kid, you can hang out around kids with chicken pox as much as you want. Except in extremely rare cases, you won't get them again. (I know that isn't the best analogy, but it kind of works to get my point across)

One you have been exposed to MRSA. (I mean truly exposed.) You already got it! I was exposed and "came down" with it while doing disaster relief after Hurricane Ike in Galveston, TX several years back. Now I'm a carrier. Big deal. I do t have any infections now, so I'm good to go as far as not spreading it right now.

Yes we should always take precautions. Regardless of what we have or have not had. But I always get a kick out of the EMS crews I see wearing PAPRs or something while transporting a contact isolation MRSA pt.

I think I'm mostly right, aren't I vene?

 

[Minnick27]

Oh I fully agree that we are most likely exposed, but she was saying it as an excuse for no ppe

 

[Trevor]

Just because someone has the "dreaded MRSA" doesnt mean your going to get it if you walk into the room.... Its not gonna jump out and get you...

What's so special about MRSA? Its resistant to ONE family of antibiotics! Can it be detrimental to granny a couple of rooms down from the patient? SURE. And thats why hospitals use the "idea" of isolation. But you have to educate yourselves about it (on a side note, this is a HUGE DOWNFALL of EMS {lack of education and more importantly "self education"})

So what happens? A patient comes in, is told they have a "super bug" then essentially locked in a room and the only people they see have masks, gloves, and a gown on. They're treated like they have the effin' plague. Thats great for the psychological aspect of healing huh???? (*enter sarcasm here*)

 

[Sasha]

Please.

I don't even gown up for MRSA patients. And rarely do I glove up for them anymore unless I'm doing something to the area affected by the MRSA or concerning their blood.

Putting the patient in a room with something you've got to touch to get? So what? The patients shouldn't be touching eachother anyway.

They cohab MRSA, CDiff and VRE patients all the time. It doesn't just float from the infected wound or nares over to the other person.

 

[JPINFV]

Putting the patient in a room with something you've got to touch to get? So what? The patients shouldn't be touching eachother anyway.

Err... it depends on where the MRSA is. If it's in the nares, then the patient should be under droplet precautions. Of course thinking about this, shouldn't colonized health care workers be wearing masks themselves and be compelled to be treated?

 

[Sasha]

I've taken a ton of nare mrsa patients and the hospitals never have had them on droplet percautions.

 

[Aerin-Sol]

Why was your partner touching the pt's cannula without gloves on?

I thought one of the problems with MRSA/VRE/VISA etc was that they do spread easily, which is why hospitals get outbreaks of them. Is that not true?

 

[Sasha]

Why was your partner touching the pt's cannula without gloves on?

I thought one of the problems with MRSA/VRE/VISA etc was that they do spread easily, which is why hospitals get outbreaks of them. Is that not true?

If they have a MRSA infection in the wound on their heel which is covered and booted, why would you need to gown up?

 

[abckidsmom]

Were you taking the patient to a nursing home? This would be enough to wreck that plan. You can't send the pt to a non-isolation bed in a nursing home if they have MRSA.

It's not a big deal for us, but in the sick people it matters. We gown up so that we don't carry it from room to room and patient to patient to patient on our clothes.

 

[rescue99]

Partner and I are at a hospital for a discharge.I take the report and get all the info, ask if the pt has any iso's nurse says no. I asked again to make sure "You said the pt has no isolations, right?" she says correct. Then my partner even asks, does she have any isolations? nurse again, no. I should add that the pt. we were picking up was sharing a room with another pt.

Nurse tells us pt is on o2 via nc but we walk in the room and her cannula is not even on.

She also tells us the pt is a spanish speaker. What she spoke was definitely not spanish....

So my partner is fiddling around with her nasal cannula, gets it on her, we package her and we're good to go. We get to the elevator and JUSSTTT as we're about to leave,

nurse: Wait! dont leave yet!
us: Why?..
nurse: She has mrsa!
us: ................. you said she has no iso's.........
nurse: (while on phone) I was told just now!

my partner and i look at each other about to strangle this nurse..... partner had his hands all over the cannula and everything..

so we're in there for about a good 40 minutes because the nurse is making calls, going crazy, gets all the other nurses at the station involved.... and on top of that she tells us to just put the pt back on the bed..
we're like are you serious? isolation means u dont put the freakin pt in a room with another patient..

her response was this..........................

Nurse: She was in there all day, what could 1 more hour do right? haha

all the other nurses ended up taking over and told us to put her in a diff room.. we did and left.
dealt with some horrible nurses but this one had to be the worst.

The MRSA is a concern but, she wasn't off base. At least she caught the problem before the patient left the building. What is a concern, is her poor communication skills.

"Higher education" is the not the answer to everything ailing society. The cure for ignorance cannot be found in text books alone. Education, curriculum, is multi-dementional. If parts of it fail, education is not complete.

The null curriculum has taken over where societal and covert curriculums once were. Thank parents and students, but don't blame educators and society for the most part. Parents wanted a feel-good education for poor little Johnny and Suzie, and this is what we get. There is a double generation of ignorant lemmings without an independent thought or the education to back it up if he/she attempted to have one. Always remember.....things left out of an education can be as important as what is included.

 

[Veneficus]

Of course thinking about this, shouldn't colonized health care workers be wearing masks themselves and be compelled to be treated?

If you started treating nonpathogenic colonies in healthcare workers everytime they were colonized, I think it reasonable that you would grow some broadly resistant strains in a short time.

As always the trick with masks would first be to establish how much incidence of transmission of infection were reduced as well as the costs of the materials compared to the costs of treatments of those requiring treatment.

People were not meant to be sterile. Infact the complete removal of natural flora is fatal.

 

[Kamischke]

Why was your partner touching the pt's cannula without gloves on?

I thought one of the problems with MRSA/VRE/VISA etc was that they do spread easily, which is why hospitals get outbreaks of them. Is that not true?

My partner did have gloves on. but the fact that he touched other things after he put on her cannula..

Were you taking the patient to a nursing home? This would be enough to wreck that plan. You can't send the pt to a non-isolation bed in a nursing home if they have MRSA.

It's not a big deal for us, but in the sick people it matters. We gown up so that we don't carry it from room to room and patient to patient to patient on our clothes.

yeah we were taking her back to a snf so we were stopped and played the waiting game.

And its not the fact that we "might have gotten mrsa" that pissed us off it was just the poorly done job by the nurse and her attittude. Sure bad nurses are dealt with on a daily but this was supposed to be one of the better hospitals that we actually liked going to.
I mean cmon, is it really hard to find that the pt. is not a spanish speaker? Just because they dont speak english doesnt mean u have to automatically label them as a spanish speaker. It sounded nothing like spanish! not to mention the other pt. she was roomed with was a fluent spanish speaker and still couldnt understand a word.

 

[WTEngel]

Get over it. Your attitude comes off as unprofessional and puts you in a bad light.

Mistakes happen. Live and learn, and move on. Calling people idiots and dwelling on it does nothing to serve the patient's interest.

 

[Kamischke]

Get over it. Your attitude comes off as unprofessional and puts you in a bad light.

Mistakes happen. Live and learn, and move on. Calling people idiots and dwelling on it does nothing to serve the patient's interest.

uhhh thats what i was saying about the nurse's attitude.
i dont think the nurse did ANYTHING to serve the patient's interest.
and dont worry, im over it, jus thought i'd share in this forum. Isnt that what its for?

 

[abckidsmom]

uhhh thats what i was saying about the nurse's attitude.
i dont think the nurse did ANYTHING to serve the patient's interest.
and dont worry, im over it, jus thought i'd share in this forum. Isnt that what its for?

This forum will challenge you, above all other things, to be professional and to have an identifiable reason for every action. It's not that people don't want to hear it, they just don't want to hear of anything that's even slightly unprofessional.

Regardless of how you acted at the time, if you were thinking these kinds of unprofessional thoughts, they (if they were paying attention) could tell. And even if they couldn't tell because they were up to their necks in a bad day, it's still up to you to do what you can to stop the escalation of the problem.

Customer service. That's it.

 

[DesertMedic66]

Please.

I don't even gown up for MRSA patients. And rarely do I glove up for them anymore unless I'm doing something to the area affected by the MRSA or concerning their blood.

Putting the patient in a room with something you've got to touch to get? So what? The patients shouldn't be touching eachother anyway.

They cohab MRSA, CDiff and VRE patients all the time. It doesn't just float from the infected wound or nares over to the other person.

I agree with the not gowning up for it. But for me gloves are a must for any patient. You will never see me dealing with a patient without wearing gloves. Just a personal preference for me.

 

[Sasha]

I do all the time. I also wash and or sanitize my hands more than my glove happy counterparts. I think the patients are safer in my ungloved but religiously washed hands than the gloved hand of my partner who touches multiple things including the patient with the same gloves.

I had one partner who wore the same gloves from the minute he pulled out the stretcher til we we were putting it back after unloading. That included driving.