There was only one nurse I didn't like. Policy is that nurses have to check in with each of their patients at least once per hour, and she checked in three times in twelve hours. She also just seemed to have a general sneer when interacting with me. On the last day, there was a shortage, and since she had already had me before, the supervisor assigned her to take me. She actively switched with someone else. So it seemed the dislike was mutual. Her final act was to list me as a fall risk in my file so that I'd be forced to switch my socks that I bought and had delivered to the hospital with the ones they give out, and so that I would need to be escorted to the bathroom every time. Superbly petty.
The other nurses were all fantastic, though.
I didn't think a nurse was qualified to make that decision.
I was listed as a fall risk, but that was after a physiotherapist's assessment. Plus I already had the walker and canes, having already been assessed years ago. My bathroom issues during part of my stay was that my roommate's visitors kept getting in the way of my reaching the bathroom, and one of them ignored the rules that visitors are to use the public washrooms. Finally I told him off, and asked a nurse to remind them.
I didn't have a problem with the roommate herself, though. Actually... I was the last person to speak to her when she was alive. It was about 3 in the morning, I was coming back from the bathroom, and she mentioned detesting a couple of the nurses. I wondered if they were the same ones I couldn't stand, and we planned to talk about it later that morning.
That talk never happened. She died in her sleep maybe an hour or two later.
A lawyer will advise you though the labyrinth of law, a financial advisor will advise you though the labyrinth of money rules. Is there a similar advisor for the US health system?
The US health system isn't Synsensa's issue here. Health care is a provincial matter, and hospitals are supposed to have a grievance procedure to complain if any doctor or nurse acts inappropriately.
The problem is that there's no independent review of these complaints. It's like complaining to the head fox that the hen house has been broken into by a subordinate fox. I learned this almost 20 years ago when making a complaint about a nurse who dropped my meds and I caught her trying to pick them up and give them to me anyway. I told her I would not take contaminated pills, and she said, "I only dropped it on your slipper, it didn't go on the
floor." I still told her I wouldn't take it, so she had to fill out the paperwork to get uncontaminated pills. This was also the nurse who would move my glasses and not tell me where they were. She just shrugged when I told her she was putting me at risk of falling (I didn't have the walker then).
So... spiteful. As was the nurse who (last year) shoved pills and a water glass in my face while I was trying to eat and told me I had to take everything RIGHT NOW, and she had to see me do it. I told her I'd do it after I was finished eating, because 2 minutes wasn't going to make any difference. She made out that I wouldn't take them, I told her not to be rude, and so forth. Honestly, shoving pills at someone when they have a mouthful of food to chew and being a (w)itch about it isn't good practice.
And another who decided that because I started to panic when learning how to give myself an injection, I should move into assisted living. She even decided that a particular place would be ideal. I told her I was happy where I was, had no intention of moving to some place where everyone else was 30 years older and that I couldn't afford anyway. "They'll make it work," she said.
That time a complaint worked. It wasn't official, but I mentioned it enough times that I never saw her again. Someone more patient took over teaching me (and I've since learned that many people have the same panic reaction the first time as I did). Now I can do it without any problem. But a year and a half ago, it was a problem.
And then there are nurses who don't read the ID bracelet that says the patient's name, ID number, why they're in the hospital, and what they're allergic to. Two nurses actually argued with me that they were going to do such-and-such a procedure and I told them that wasn't why I was in the hospital. Thank goodness I could speak for myself. I shudder to think what would have happened if I couldn't have.
Other than those, and the one who thought she had to explain to me how to put on a hospital gown (really? I told her I knew how and her explanations were unnecessary... and
she argued about it; I suppose that she was used to her patients being 80 and not mentally on track, and didn't realize I was only there because the hospital was full and I'd been stashed there due to lack of room on the floor where I'd been), most of the rest weren't bad. One or two were intrigued by my writing (I took my NaNoWriMo project with me), and one was a student nurse who said some of the patients wouldn't let her do anything or practice on them. I didn't mind; I'd worked with dozens of student nurses in my years of typing for college and university students and got to know some of their assignments pretty well. They work hard in their student years, most are full of optimism... and with some it gets stomped out of them. Others should never have gone into it in the first place, as they lack the necessary empathy. This one, however, was very good at that and did an overall good job, which I made sure to mention to her supervisor.
