How to Visit Your Loved One?s Who Are Dying in the Hospital

by Trainjustleft

I’m a critical care nurse. I have not “seen it all” as an ambulance driver or a Gulf War medic has seen it. Those people deserve tremendous respect for what they have done and what they have seen.

But so do I, and others like me, and we are not getting any respect. There is a huge shortage of nurses who are willing to put up with our present working conditions and you visitors are making it all worse.

A critical care unit is an interesting place to the properly informed, and a scary place to someone who’s never been there before. It’s even scarier after a late evening phone call that your “wife has been in a car wreck,” or your father “slipped and fell” and now they are in the hospital. To make matters worse, we now have healthcare privacy laws that ABSOLUTELY PROHIBIT giving out information on the telephone to anyone who calls that has not previously established their identity to us. Man, does that piss people off. I can’t and won’t describe a patient’s condition over the phone to a relative, a police officer, etc. I can only imagine what this is doing to someone’s psyche when they call in to say, “How’s she doing?” I will only say, “stable, critical, etc. I suggest you come now (which is merely rendering an opinion) or maybe, “Get some rest and come here in the morning.” (Another opinion. Don’t sue me.)

There are reasons for everything. If you have secretly known that your mother was a hard-drinking, drug abusing, evil bitch then I don’t feel that I should have to explain it all for you when she’s unconscious on a ventilator. I can’t tell you if she’s going to come out of it to go party some more tomorrow. I also don’t feel that it is at all appropriate for you to get upset when I’m not in her room suctioning her throat or that the doctor is not parked in a chair beside her bed when you happen to get to the hospital.

If your mother was previously living alone without assistance, alive and well, and you have been summonsed to the intensive care unit to see her, well, I can really understand your frustrations. But remember, the lowly nurse doesn’t have all of the answers either. If she’s in the ICU she’s been seen by a doctor or two already, and again, she’s there for a reason. And no, the doctor is not sitting in the room waiting for you to show up.

It is now a felony to hit a healthcare worker. I will file a charge and follow up and you will go to jail. Being a patient doesn’t grant you the privilege of hitting a nurse. Being a drunk and disorderly patient out of their mind on drugs doesn’t give you privileges either. I have the right to go home to my family safe and sound, uncontaminated by your blood and secretions. It’s really interesting that these rights had to be legislated, and only recently I might add. And I’ve also taken care of nurses who have been beaten up, only to be told by management, “Take tomorrow off” but don’t you fuckin’ leave TODAY. We’re short handed.

If your mother was previously living alone on chocolate cake and 3 or 4 packs of Winstons a day, sitting in front of a slot machine guzzling down Pepsi’s and twinkies and now she’s on a ventilator, you have to remember that there are reasons for everything and the nurse can’t fix what the years of sloth have accomplished. And yes, to be fair, you oughta’ see some of these nurses around here. Talk about sloth. It’s hard for ME to get any help from them. And the doctor is not going to be sitting in a chair beside her in the intensive care unit waiting for you to show up.

If you want to know stuff about the ventilators, medicines, equipment, go ahead and ask, but it’s really not necessary for you to get an in-depth answer. And don’t pull up a chair and park yourself in the room so that you can “make sure she’s OK.” You are only going to be in OUR way. You will also prevent healthcare workers from casually entering her room, and you WANT them to do this. This is the honest truth. We are extremely busy and perpetually short staffed and we have no time for pleasantry’s or your repetitive questions about, “How’s she doing NOW?” from everyone who comes in. We will avoid you AND the patient.

Assign ONE member of your family to field the questions to the other members of your family. And from then on out, put yourself IN CHARGE of the other members of your family. The nursing staff and the doctors will not and should not rehash all aspects of care and condition to every family member who shows up on their own sweet time. We will expect you to all be in touch with each other, despite never being in touch with each other until the family tragedy. Don’t use the nurses to maintain your families “walls” or to play psychologist, fixing your past problems. Don’t stand at the desk and demand that the nurse come “talk to me NOW” because the chances are very good that he or she is talking to someone else about ANOTHER patient or helping some other high-stressed nurse deal with another problem. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve got more than one customer. Think about it. The patients been in the room for more than 24 hours or so by the time you show up. Now, suddenly by virtue or your presence, you demand to see the doctor right NOW, you demand to see the nurse right NOW. Get a grip. The nurse is there all damned day. Take a seat outside; we’ll get to you. If we need you, we’ll get to you. Which pretty much explains it all…we DON’T need you unless you have to sign a consent or something, or give a little more of the past medical history if you know it, but unless it’s an emergency it can WAIT. Indeed, unconscious patients without relatives get treated FASTER because the doctor assumes responsibility and signs the consents. We don’t have to try to get relatives on the phone. And no, being in ICU doesn’t mean everything is an emergency. I’ve got patients more than 42 days in an ICU. Their emergencies are OVER. They are simply critical care maintenance, and yes, we fuckin’ HATE their relatives. Most of the time they “want everything done” to make someone linger to death. And we do that very well too, thank you.

We WILL need you to discuss the patient’s care if the patient isn’t rational or too sick to respond. We will need you to determine how far you want to go with heroics and life saving measures, considering the patients quality of life (See above statement.) And yes, we’ve seen it all when it comes to self-serving family members, juggling to get on moms’ good side at the last moments, trying to justify years of absence or caring. And no, we won’t and can’t fix years of smoking, drinking, obesity, diabetics on Pepsi, or similar mental problems. But you can basically visit once a day, spend 15 minutes or so and then get the hell out of there. You’re not doing anything productive. Honest. You may miss them, but get out of the room and go plan your day and your future. Make arrangements for if and when they get out of the hospital, dead or alive. I won’t even discuss life-style changes to make you or the patient’s mental problems change. It happens so rarely it’s not worth talking about. Smokers will smoke even after a heart surgery. Pigs will dine at the buffets even after their arteries have been temporarily reamed out. And, if you are one of the few that prove me wrong, well...good for you. Your ICU wake up call did the trick. Go tell it on the mountain and spread the healing word.

In a nut shell:

Don’t threaten or strike healthcare workers. It’s the law.
Don’t expect all answers to your questions over the phone. It’s the law.
Don’t expect the nurse to drop whatever they’re doing when you arrive
Don’t expect the doctor to be there when you arrive
Don’t expect the nurse to drop whatever they’re doing when you arrive.
Repeat this to yourself over and over again.
Don’t expect years of personal neglect to correct themselves
Don’t sit in the room and hover

Do visit and get out, but it’s NOT necessary to visit Do convey all communication through one family member Do leave a CELL PHONE or Beeper number for emergencies Do be prepared to give consent over the phone for special procedures Do be prepared for all possible outcomes, living or dying Do realize there is more than one patient in the hospital Do realize that you are not the only visitor Do remember the emergency room gets priority over procedures Do remember the hospital WON’T hire and pay more nurses than it should

Remember: You shouldn’t piss off your waitress. Never piss off the nurse.

You WILL be kicked out if you’re an asshole. Hopefully even arrested. If it comes down to that, well then YOUR priorities are certainly screwed up and you really don’t give a damn about the person in the hospital ANYWAY. What makes you think that you can show up and tell us what to do, change our visiting hours, demand this and that, and NOT OFFER TO PAY FOR MORE HELP THAN WE HAVE?

You wanna’ change something? Call your insurance company and tell em’ that we need more nurses, doctors, equipment and security to police people like YOU and that YOU are willing to pay for it all with an increase in your premiums or direct deposit. Wiping a fat smokers butt while she’s on a ventilator isn’t CHEAP.

And if you are a nice, civilized visitor, get mad at the system, not the nurse or the doctors. Get pissed off that your insurance companies are making obscene profits. Get pissed off that they sent a nurse home because a patient died instead of keeping him/her onboard to take up the slack. If we get more help, more nurses will come back to do this kind of work.

And, of course, if you or your family members are broke alcoholics with no insurance or money to pay for your care, well, we’re used to you. Get the fuck out. We’re in charge here. The taxpayers are picking up the bill. And by taxpayers, I mean the NURSES and the rest of the world that is gainfully employed in high-stressed jobs.

Thank you for reading. I hope I didn’t get AIDS today. I might spread it to my loved ones.