My Saturday night....ADD warning..this is long.

[Amina516]

Put your feet up, grab a beer....this is looooong.

Fortunately AND unfortunately, i have stories.

So, story the first:

Saturday night, 8pm. Random young lady in street clothes approaches the front desk as we're all running around. I happen by her first and ask her what she needs. She tells me she was sent up specifically to my floor from the secretary in the OR waiting room and she needs to take a test, get some scrubs and shadow a nurse. Now, I have no idea WTH she's talking about and theres also some holes in her story:

A. There IS no staff in the waiting room @ 8pm on a Saturday night. They leave at noon.
2. We have no extra scrubs on our floor, never have. We only have patient gowns.
C. We have literally no fuckin idea as to who she is: shes in street clothes and she has slippers on, no socks. If you were job shadowing wouldnt you wear normal shoes and socks?

So, the other nurse who ambled past and I, call the supervisor, who also has no idea who this girl is. The girl leaves her name and says she will wait in the OR waiting room again, when the supervisor asks her for her cell number so the supervisor can call her when she figures things out, the girl says her cell phone doesnt work in the waiting room, so to please page her overhead on the hospital paging system. Eveythings settled, girl leaves.

20 mins later supervisor calls back, wants a description of the girl and what clothes shes wearing. I give it to her and she hangs up

5 mins later i hear the girls name over the hospital PA system

5 more mins later I see security guards running around, literally getting off and on elevators at a high rate of speed, walking the length of our floor and other units, which is odd to say the least.

20 mins later supervisor come to the floor with a rather large security guard. She wants a better description of the girl and shares this story:

Someone walked into the ICU and into a patients room. This person erased all the info off the dry erase board in all patients rooms that have the nurses name and plan of care for the day. This person started talking to the patient like she was his nurse and then proceeded to take the patient off of the oxygen they were on....

..i'll let that sink in for a min.



Apparently it seems, she was kinda chased from ICU when they realized someone was randomly in the room late at night, but then this person disappeared in the following madness...and gee whiz, wouldnt you know it she matched the description of the girl coming onto my floor asking for scrubs. Pt was reportedly fine, i guess they saw her quickly after that so damage was not done, thank God.

They never find her. :/

Story the second:

Later that same night, a family member (FM) for a patient of ours calls. Now this FM has been calling nonstop, literally several times an HOUR for an update on a stable patient. She was told to call once a shift or we would call her if something changes, so she changed to calling every 3 hrs instead...

Anywho, FM calls and has a conversation with the one nurse:

FM: Hi, can I get an update on *patient* in room 2?
Nurse: Yes, pt is good, no fevers, blah blah
FM: Ok, thanks. *hangs up*

*1 min later*

FM: Hi, can I ask if *patient* in room 2 as any visitors***?
Nurse: Yes, her boyfriend is in visiting,
FM: WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK? WHY THE FUCK IS HE THERE? HE NEEDS TO BE PHYSICALLY REMOVED NOW!!!
Nurse: Im sorry? I cant have him removed. The patient is ok with him being here, Theres nothing I can really do
FM: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! BLARGH, *various threats, name calling, then hangs up*

Nurse looks at me.. "what the fuck was that?"

FM calls back not a minute later

FML: GET HIM OUT NOW! YOU NEED TO CALL FUCKIN SECURITY, THIS IS BULLSHIT, YOU NEED TO DO YOUR JOB!
Nurse *tries to explain things to this person and fails, FM hangs up on her*

So long story short, FM calls back all irate again, our charge nurse picks up and gets yelled at for a few minutes as shes trying to explain why we cant just have him removed and gets hung up on. FM calls again and in the midst of her ranting, the charge nurse is able to give her the supervisors number (same supervisor that dealt with the attempted ICU spechul snowflake earlier). FM hangs up. Supervisor comes up and is on the phone..getting cussed at by FM. Im pretty sure everyone got cussed at except for me b/c i didnt pick up the phone.

So, they get the BF to leave as they tell him its after visiting hours (it was about 11pm by this point, but our hospital doesnt have set visiting hours, its a free for all at all hours) and go in to talk to patient about the BF. She waffles on whether or not she wants him to visit but finally decides that no, she doesnt want him there (IDK exactly) but declines a room change. Our floor is not a locked unit, so anyone can just stroll on the floor at all times.

Needless to say, the BF showed up the next morning and security has to be called since the patient doesnt want him there now and the pt says something like "Gee, they must not want you here b/c of my FM"....

Security escorts him out, its a quiet affair but he is told its b/c of the patients own request, not FMs.

So FM calls Sunday midmorning and asks for the patients day nurse.

FM: Excuse me, can you tell me why no one fed my daughter her breakfast? <<yelling and extremely attitudinal
Nurse: Is there a reason you think I should be shoving food down this patients throat? Shes 40 years old and is capable of eating if she wants to. (she literally has nothing wrong that would prevent her from eating, the FM wanted her literally spoonfed)
FM: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME?
Nurse: *hangs up*

FM: (Calls back) HOW THE FUCK YOU HANG U-....
Nurse: *click*

FM: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THI-
Nurse: Look, everytime you cuss at me i AM hanging up the phone.
FM: FUCK YO-
Nurse: *click*

FM has not called back since.


We have just had a run of weird shit happen on our floor over the past month or so. Id like peace an quiet please....:/



***pt has signed a information release form so we can tell this particular FM anything and the patient has already consented to it, visitors is not protected information so that was given freely.

[Mishi]

Why do you get all the nutters? *big hugs*
I have no words... seriously no words to adequately describe these fuckwits! And people wonder why I can't sleep in hospitals!

[Amina516]

! And people wonder why I can't sleep in hospitals!

Seriously, I probably wouldnt be too able to sleep in one either. Had a little 90 yr old lady who would not sleep b/c her room door had no lock. And wouldnt you know it, she sat in a chair and watched TV all night b/c she just did not want her purse to get stolen while she was sleeping.

[Hanzoku]

First one sounds like an angel-of-death type killer. Well, and completely off her rocker. I hope she's caught next time, before she does manage to kill someone.

[Micer]

That first one... freakin scary. Part of me hopes she gets caught, but the other part of me hopes that you guys never ever see her again and that she doesn't hurt someone.

And I love it when folks don't get that whole 'Curse word = Hanging up' game, because I can only imagine by the end of it they're literally punching the phone to get the number back in.

[Sapphire Silk]

Well, Amina, you had an exciting night!

Some people are very strange. They come into hospitals to act out delusions or fantasies of being doctors or nurses. That being said, we sometimes do get students who will shadow nurses on a particular unit to get an idea of what working there would be like. However, they should already have been cleared through the hospital and have ID. No ID, you get told to leave and not come back.

Some women will pretend to be staff or pretend to be pregnant in order to gain access to babies they want to try and steal. We had this in my area recently (her face is plastered all over the unit, and she's been warned not to come back).

I've had FM like yours before. Kudos to the nurse who told her off I've been known to hang up on family members AND doctors who are disrespectful to me over the telephone. I've been confronted over it, but my response is always the same: when said person can speak to me like a normal human being, then I will not hang up on them.

I would not have asked BF to leave though, since the patient was an adult. I'd have told FM: Patient is an adult and she can have whatever visitors she likes as long as they follow hospital rules. You do not get to decide who visits her.

It's pretty clear Patient is a carpet and used to being walked all over by FM. BF's banning came from FM, not the Patient even though it came from the Patient's lips.

[Shalom]

Seriously, I probably wouldnt be too able to sleep in one either. Had a little 90 yr old lady who would not sleep b/c her room door had no lock. And wouldnt you know it, she sat in a chair and watched TV all night b/c she just did not want her purse to get stolen while she was sleeping.

Smart lady. My wife's purse WAS stolen while she was in hospital having a baby. First place we went on discharge was to the police station to report the theft (and the hospital security director kinda let it slip, off the record, that hers wasn't the first one stolen). Someone had already used the credit cards by then.

(oh, and when I told the cop we'd just had our first, he laughed evilly and said "No more sleep for you, then...")

[Twinblade]

At one of the hospitals i worked at a few years back, we had a frightening incident happen in our ICU, a patient who had suffered a stroke in winter, and had lost the ability to speak temporarily, months later was able to speak and told her speech therapist that shortly after she was admitted, a man in hospital scrubs had come into her room and raped her. the therapist passed it on to his supervisor, the supervisor passed it on to the vice president of the hospital, and the vice chose not to call police. When the patient got out, she sued the hospital because of it, and the police were contemplating pressing charges on the vice, for covering up a crime. Lucky for the patient, security keeps the tapes of comings and goings for a while, and they were able to find a shot of the dude grabbing scrubs from a cart and shortly afterward going into the icu. last i heard though, they still hadn't caught the guy... Scary shit.....

[Amina516]

Ive had the last 3 days off and still have yet to recover...

Funny thing is, i was in the hospital today for non work purposes and i saw the patients (from story 2) boyfriend in the elevator.. Wonder where he was going..

[PepperElf]

I hope the patient lets the BF in. I mean if she's 40 and old enough to feed herself as a competent adult... she should be allowed to say whether or not her BF can visit without Mommy interfering.

[Sapphire Silk]

At one of the hospitals i worked at a few years back, we had a frightening incident happen in our ICU, a patient who had suffered a stroke in winter, and had lost the ability to speak temporarily, months later was able to speak and told her speech therapist that shortly after she was admitted, a man in hospital scrubs had come into her room and raped her. the therapist passed it on to his supervisor, the supervisor passed it on to the vice president of the hospital, and the vice chose not to call police. When the patient got out, she sued the hospital because of it, and the police were contemplating pressing charges on the vice, for covering up a crime. Lucky for the patient, security keeps the tapes of comings and goings for a while, and they were able to find a shot of the dude grabbing scrubs from a cart and shortly afterward going into the icu. last i heard though, they still hadn't caught the guy... Scary shit.....

The nurse in charge of the patient should have called the police. . . . period. Sure, the supervisor should have been brought into the loop. But the RN was responsible for calling the police, and the supervisor also should have called the police. The decision should not have been left to an administrator.

Nurses are MANDATED reporters. The cops can and should press charges against the vice. The patient can file a civil action against the supervisor, and the supervisor has NO defense because she is a mandated reporter as well.