Yep, it was Friday..............
We get a call yesterday from an area hospital saying a patient was on her way to our facility. We had no idea this person was coming, for one, and two the family was requesting security to meet them at the door because her estranged son threatened to bring his guns and shoot everybody.
Huh?
Okay, calm down.
page manager, page admission nurse and ask politely what the fuck is going on?
nurse calls back and acts like its no big deal, says manager should have told us what time patient was coming. manager calls and said nurse should have told us. whatever the patient is rolling in the door. we have no orders, no DNR, no signed consents, nada but an H&P from previous hospital. We don't even know whats wrong other than she's unresponsive.
Long story short her son was upset she wasn't going to his hospital of choice and got mad enough to threaten everyone. The story we got much later was that he was going home to get his guns. Then we heard he had handcuffed himself to his bed. whatever.
So, we had a lock down. I paged admission nurse again to bring orders so we know how to treat person in distress. and dont' forget the DNR.
Nurse shows up acting all nonchalant. I held my tongue and just took the paper work. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore and asked her if she knew about the patient and the family history yesterday which she said she did, why did she wait till we had to page her to get info that patient was coming and little bit of family background would be nice. She said blah, blah, blah. I told her it would have been nice to know in advance as we are not an icu or trauma unit.
We are a hospice floor. She just looked at me as I told her how this interferes w/ the patient's treatment not to mention the other patients and families who know have to get security to escort them out to their cars. AND how it causes stress for the staff and interferes with other patient care. Security showed up and parked a cruiser in front to deter any would be homicidal maniacs and said they'd come to the unit more often.
manager finally comes down all cool and gives us a name and a color picture to look at. We have no idea what to do if/when he makes his way into the building but to call our security. They gave us panic buttons that are hooked up to their alert systems.
i'm so fucking tired an stressed out about it. the manager fucked up and didn't call us to confirm pateint was coming, admission nurse didn't call to give us a heads up on the family situation and releasing hospital nurse didn't call w / any report.
Believe it or not we are having more and more acute cases coming in and we don't even hae a crash cart for those occaisional full codes we end up with.
i'm calling legal to see if our management knew about this man's threats prior to the patient being transported. if so, i believe they put the patient before staff safety and if that is the case shit is hitting the fan and it won't be mine.
Huh?
Okay, calm down.
page manager, page admission nurse and ask politely what the fuck is going on?
nurse calls back and acts like its no big deal, says manager should have told us what time patient was coming. manager calls and said nurse should have told us. whatever the patient is rolling in the door. we have no orders, no DNR, no signed consents, nada but an H&P from previous hospital. We don't even know whats wrong other than she's unresponsive.
Long story short her son was upset she wasn't going to his hospital of choice and got mad enough to threaten everyone. The story we got much later was that he was going home to get his guns. Then we heard he had handcuffed himself to his bed. whatever.
So, we had a lock down. I paged admission nurse again to bring orders so we know how to treat person in distress. and dont' forget the DNR.
Nurse shows up acting all nonchalant. I held my tongue and just took the paper work. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore and asked her if she knew about the patient and the family history yesterday which she said she did, why did she wait till we had to page her to get info that patient was coming and little bit of family background would be nice. She said blah, blah, blah. I told her it would have been nice to know in advance as we are not an icu or trauma unit.
We are a hospice floor. She just looked at me as I told her how this interferes w/ the patient's treatment not to mention the other patients and families who know have to get security to escort them out to their cars. AND how it causes stress for the staff and interferes with other patient care. Security showed up and parked a cruiser in front to deter any would be homicidal maniacs and said they'd come to the unit more often.
manager finally comes down all cool and gives us a name and a color picture to look at. We have no idea what to do if/when he makes his way into the building but to call our security. They gave us panic buttons that are hooked up to their alert systems.
i'm so fucking tired an stressed out about it. the manager fucked up and didn't call us to confirm pateint was coming, admission nurse didn't call to give us a heads up on the family situation and releasing hospital nurse didn't call w / any report.
Believe it or not we are having more and more acute cases coming in and we don't even hae a crash cart for those occaisional full codes we end up with.
i'm calling legal to see if our management knew about this man's threats prior to the patient being transported. if so, i believe they put the patient before staff safety and if that is the case shit is hitting the fan and it won't be mine.