Posted on 12/23/2011 2:55:59 PM PST by Nachum
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Two nurses in a Utah hospital's intensive care unit were fired this week for taping a patient's mouth shut and laughing about it, hospital officials said Friday.
Penny Artalejo was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo on Dec. 17 with nausea and anxiety from taking medication for chronic neck pain, her daughters told KSL ( http://bit.ly/tbVNuS ).
Artalejo's daughter, Brittany Bilson, told the television station that her mother's teeth were chattering and she was moaning and shaking. Bilson said the nurses told her mother to shut up, taped her mouth closed and joked they would be fired if they were caught.
"It's not right. It's inhumane," Bilson said. "We put our loved ones' lives in their hands. I left the hospital basically thinking she's fine from here, and just more bad happened."
Artalejo said the nurses knew what they were doing was wrong. Though in pain, she said she was alert the whole time.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Does the White House need new nurses?????
Futher Muckers.
Let Vendome at them for say . . . 15 minutes?
I will unmcerciously make the pain and fear known to them in a fashion that is elevated above what they did to this poor woman.
I spent the last 5 years in and out of Hospitals.
All kinds of noise from patients for a variety of reasons.
You just block it out.
I’d beat them with dusty chalk erasures.
Not the little ones, mind you. But the big tan ones used for cleaning a chalk board.
When I knocked all the chalk out of the erasures I’d put em talcum powder and keep on going.....
I haven't spoken to my wife in over three months...we're not fighting, I just don't like to interrupt.
(She loves these jokes! )
Good!
Hydrocodone? I had a horrible reaction to it last Saturday. On the list of “Side Effects” they called it “Excitability.” Yeah! Right! It was like I was shot into high speed orbit! “Rare serious side effects are depression, ringing in the ears, high blood pressure, elevated pulse rate, itching, muscle stiffness, “ All that, and I only took 1/2 dose. Broken ribs and coughing. My doc went on vacation after phoning in the script.
Something is wrong with this story....
Patients with nausea and neck pain are not admitted to the ICU.
What you said.
The rehab center where my DIL works can’t accept any new patients until Jan. 31 because the nursing staff flunked a state inspection. Two nurses were caught sleeping in hospital beds, they were feeding a patient solid food when she was supposed to be on pureed food, lots and lots of violations.
The PT and OT staff got a 97% but they will all suffer because of the nurses who are still neglecting their duties which are often done by the PT and OT staffs just because it is to their patients best interests.
In defense of ‘real’ nurses - there are few real nurses around in hospitals these days. Those you see in nurse uniforms are nurses aids and those who have taken short nursing courses. Most of the RNs, BSNs and Nurse Practitioners are dedicated and good.
I am so sick of this typical PR boilerplate BS. "We are fully committed to providing quality and compassionate care"... except when the staff decides it's amusing to duct tape patients mouths shut.
While I’ve often imagined myself with two nurses and a roll of tape, this wasn’t one of the scenarios.
I wanted to make extra money and I’ve only ever been a housewife.
I took a job at a retirement home and was so excited, I like old folk and cleaning is my thang.
I made it one day. It was disgustingly evil in my thinking.
The girl[s] ‘training’ me were terrible cold and lacking heart as I see/saw it.
There was a lady who screamed and hollered, and legally we couldn’t touch them. It broke my heart.
She wanted to eat and I could not feed her, we had to get a CNA to do this and they weren’t too enthusiastic.
It seemed my trying to get attention for her was an issue. I treat my whining pups better than these seniors were treated.
Another lady was parked in front of the dining room, just left there—hunched WAY over— supposedly because after lunch there was BINGO and she LOVED BINGO. I was chided for wishing to help.
I can’t imagine that was good for her spine. I’m just regular people but that didn’t seem healthy, to me, and I couldn’t touch/help her. Drove me out of my skin.
My breaking point was when a fella passed away. The girls took turns going into the room and coming out laughing, then asked and condemned me when I would wouldn’t go in for a giggle.
They didn’t seem to understand my opinion that he deserved respect, even if he “isn’t there” as they told me. They told me I was scared. I wasn’t, their game was just sick and twisted.
At lunch the girls played a peacock calling on their cell-phone and told me that was the lady screaming for lunch.
I admit, it did sound like her—help, me...help.
I don’t know...I just know with every fiber of my being that my mother and Aunt will NEVER land in one of those places!
Add to that they loved Spanish and when I said I didn’t speak it, they told me I would and I would understand it if I wanted anything done from laundry.
Terrible, terrible ...
If you have a family member in a retirement home—pay CLOSE attention because some of these folks really have no heart.
Yeah, something is fishy with this story. Why would they put her in the ICU? I smell a lawsuit being trumped up.
Very sad story. I pray to God I never have to be put into such a place.
My mother used to always tell her kids that she would come back to haunt us if we ever put her in a home. We had to put her in a rehab center after she broke her hip. They were all elderly there, and it just killed us even though she was there for only about a month. We arranged our schedules so that one of us was with her almost all of the time from 8 am to 8 pm.
Most of the help there was not at all impressive. Plus they had male nurses taking care of the elderly women, and we girls did not like that at all.
After she got out, we sisters took turns going to her house to care for her for about 10 months until she passed away.
I wonder if this is true, or if it is a “kaching” thing.
If true, it Sounds like the woman was a druggie in withdrawal, (no one is hospitalized for “neck pain” nowadays)....and the nurses have had it with her acting out...and with the nurses shortage, unless you’ve seen how disruptive patients can put you over the top when you’ve worked two shifts and missed meals and breaks because there is too much work to do...
But as I said: The whole story sounds suspicious.
for example: what did they use to “tape her mouth shut”? Paper tape? Adhesive tape is not the sticky stuff of the old days: Nowadays it’s easy to remove without removing the sking...Were her hands restrained so she couldn’t pull it off?
There are strict protocols for using restraints nowadays.
rofl
After she got out, we sisters took turns going to her house to care for her for about 10 months until she passed away.
***************************
I hope and pray I can give that to my Mother and Aunt. I will do everything in my power to do this. It is sad to think about, I can’t imagine my Mother anything but the toughest—I’ve known nothing or anyone stronger than my mother. God bless you and yours.
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