Hatrack River Forum: Hospital care

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Posted by Christy (Member # 4397) on :

My dad is recovering from major heart surgery and my family is struggling with the emotional turmoil now that he is making such good progress and likely to go home tomorrow.

He had to be sedated yesterday since he was so eager to go home that nothing would satisfy him. Unfortunately, my mom was the one to partially restrain him at one point and has been the one to explain a lot of the tests (which he doesn't want and doesn't think he needs) to him and so he resents her for those decisions and her part in them.

I've been rather disappointed with the hospital staff in this regard. The nurses called her and blamed her when she went to work on Tuesday and he started to wander the halls thinking he was well enough to be up and looking for the doctor to talk with her. She's been with him at least 10 hours a day throughout the recovery period and has taken up a lot of the duties I would expect the hospital staff to be responsible for. Their only solution was to try to move him across from the nurses station into a room with a man who was swearing and being physically restrained to his bed -- a room he had shared previously with the man before my mom had him moved. It was all rather unprofessional.

I guess my question is, just how much care should the hospital be responsible for, especially in terms of coping with the surgery and rehabilitation. Is it really best left up to the family to struggle though -- as they say, we know our dad/husband a lot better than they do -- or do the hospital staff have a responsibility to be sure that the patient is coping before leaving the hospital? How much of the care should be explained to the patient as opposed to the caregiver and how do you decide how capable the patient is of deciding what is best for his health?

I can only imagine the poor care he would have gotten had my mom not been able to be with him and it scares me.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

(((((Christy&family)))))

Nurse understaffing has become chronic in many hospitals, I've been told (by nurses). One of the effects of that is that it has become expected/necessary for family to do things that 20 years ago would have been done by nurses.

Doesn't seem to be working well for any of the parties involved. [Frown]

Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :

[Group Hug]