My clinic is a ZOO!

[Alexysis]

Good lord, it's bad enough that it's a 30-chair center, but lately the management is letting the place go to the dogs! Just in the last week, there is one guy who always comes with 3 or 4 family members and they sit with him at his seat (using up all the stack chairs), then there is another Hispanic gentleman who brings his wife and son along, and the son listens to Merinque music on his phone without earbuds (and gets nasty when you ask him to turn it off, too). Between that, the garbage on the floor where people miss the overflowing cans, or drop food on the floor......sometimes when I wake up from a nap, I think that I'm at a Greyhound bus station waiting room!

[lulu836]

There is NOBODY but patients in the treatment room at my clinic!  I have been to several different dialysis providers while travelling and they all pretty much adhere to the "snacks only - no meals and patients only" in the room.  I have never heard of the circumstances you have described.

[GA_DAWG]

At our clinic, they will allow one family member into the treatment room for five minutes. They have just isued a letter saying people can bring a small snack, but those who have been bringing meals will be removed form the machine, taken to the lobby to eat, then hooked back up. As to the lack of headphones, unfortunately it is a few of the patients who do this and then get snippy when told to put them on or turn off the volume. Then there are the gum poppers.....

[Alexysis]

Oh, man, at MY clinic, they have always let people sit with patients, only having them move back to the half-wall barrier when it's time for needle/catheter unhooking. One guy who is healthy and employed, has his father meet him at dialysis, then his dad sits there and reads while his son dozes. But lately, people bringing their extended families is just too much! Geez, the other day, there was some 10-year old staring at me while the nurse cannulated my arm. I feel like I'm on one of those dumb TV shows where people everybody lives in a house filled with cameras! I wonder how long it will be before Rover comes along with them?

Now, I understand there need to be times when an assistant has to be there. The man with Down's syndrome has a person from his group home sit there, and when the dialysis patient from the jail comes in shackled, a deputy sits with him the entire time. But it's getting to be similar to 'emotional support' animal abuse. At some point your desire to have your entire family there collides with my desire for some d@mn peace and quiet!

[iolaire]

Are you in the US? If so you should be able to put a stop to this. There are all sorts of local, state and federal departments you could complain to. Additional if it’s one of the big dialysis chains make a call to the corporate office.

You should have some level of privacy and a sanitary treatment environment.

As others have stated your zoo doesn’t seem normal.

[Michael Murphy]

During my dialysis there is a large lady who arrives in a wheelchair yelling and waving to everyone, she greets every one she knows at foghorn volume.  I was asleep with my beats headphone on and music set to drown out  level.  She blasted through the beats and woke me up.  To say the least I was absolutely annoyed so I called the charge nurse and asked if I had been transferred to the zoo since I knew no medical facility would allow a circus to perform for sleeping patients.  Since then she has be slightly more tame but we  are getting close to me complaining to the clinic manager.

[Rerun]

Let's just open the border!  Come one come all!  Yep Yep Yep

  

[Riki]

Patients only in our treatment room during on/off times.  Once everyone is on, family members can come in, and when it's time to start taking people off, they have to leave.  I've never seen more than 2 or 3 visitors at a time.  I never have anyone with me, even when traveling.  My mom won't stay at the dialysis units.  She will stay with me until they take me in, then she will go and wander.  She'll either come back to get me, or (as the case in Philly last week) stay in the waiting room until I'm done.