A Dialysis Christmas Miracle

[Stacy Without An E]

We received our yearly copy of "Patient Right & Responsibilities" and one of the points caught my attention.

“Treating the staff and other patients with consideration, respect and recognition of individual differences, both in language and behavior.”

I wrote a letter to the Clinic Manger detailing the abuse I've had to endure due to rude patients and their total lack of respect when it comes to TV volume.

On one occasion, I couldn't get a tech's attention when I was bleeding all over the chair because of a loud TV.  In the other, I was cramping and couldn't get anybody's attention due to the volume.

In my letter, I offered a solution: disconnect all the speakers so patients can only use the TV with headphones.

More manageable clinic.  Safer patient care.  Everybody wins.

I just received a message from the Clinic Manager that this is an easy mechanical fix and will be implemented after the holidays.

It's a Dialysis Christmas Miracle!

The point to the story is, if something if occurring in your clinic that is impeding your safety and care in some way, speak up.

(It also helps if you have a blog in which to air your grievances.)

[David13]

That is absolutely wonderful, Stacy! 

It is great to know that you were assertive in making your concerns known.  The fact that they were acted upon may truly be a Christmas miracle.  Congratulations!   

[monrein]

Good on ya for getting that to happen Stacy.  Squawking is good.  I've never been in a unit with uncontrolled TV noise and I'd be even crazier than I already am if I had to listen to what others are watching.  At my clinic each patient is given a  first set of earplugs for the TV, free of charge, and we leave them in our individual bins.  If we lose them we have to buy the next set.  Seems fair enough to me.

Hooray for miracles.

[G-Ma]

New one for me...Friday they put me next to a lady who sprays an air scent every 15 min..it was strong, I got a headache, techs giggled about it..I finally put the blanket over my head as the smell was so strong...they were having problems with my arterial and venous pressure so that added time to my run, then alarms were not answered in a timely manner so that added time to my run..one alarm went 12 min with no one coming by...in the chair at 10:45 AM, off the machine holding needles at 3:40 Pm...they knew I was not happy..I didn't go today, couldn't force myself, have to be good for Tuesday's run but I am going to talk to the Nurse Manager who was not there on Friday.
Ann

[monrein]

I definitely could not handle an air spray.  How nasty.  Squawk I say and squawk loudly.  We're asked to not wear perfume because some people are allergic...makes sense to me.  Staff should have the good sense to deal with these issues all by their big grown up selves really.  Crazy crazy world.

[jessup]

OMG G-Ma  
How rude and inconsiderate of the scent squirting patient
and how unprofessional of those techs to laugh little lone not attending to the machine beeping for so long

Hope your next trip to clinic is better and make sure you give them "heaps" on Tuesday
Take care mate.

[del]

I would raise "hell" about the air freshener being sprayed. Most hospitals as well as public building have a no scent policy.  I would be very upset with the nurse's laughing at her spraying it!!!  Hubby complained at the center he was at abut the volume. TV's weren't too bad because most you had to use head phones with but one man used to bring a radio and have the volume really loud. He was told if he wanted to bring the radio he had to use the headphones or he was not allowed to have it on!!  He started using the headphones but would sing (will mostly moans) along!!!  That was torture too. 

[Rerun]

Let us know when it happens!

                                                     

[RichardMEL]

Stacy thank god for that. We've had the TV's with headphones thing ever since I started in the unit. Thank God. Sometimes they disconnect it and have the TV up loud and if it really bugs me I'll make a comment, but in general people stick with the headphones and it's blissfully quiet. When I fire up my laptop I *always* use headphones (unless in the VERY rare case I'm showing a nurse something) - I just think it's common courtesy. Nobody wants to hear the volume of whatever I'm watching and we don't want to hear the greek news, or the umpteenth repeat of some documentary about Hitler.....

 

[Kitsune]

There's a few patients at my center who are rude as all hell like that. One old Puerto Rican woman named Iris blares her telenovelas at full volume, claiming to be hard-of-hearing but oddly enough she can hear clear as crystal when she wants to (like when free stuff is given out), another one is Jarvis the village junkie who at one point had his TV so loud that I laid screaming over the sound of his TV for 15 minutes as I cramped so bad I couldn't move, and lastly Angie the laughing hyena who brings DVDs in and laughs uproariously as she blares her DVD player at top volume.

I have a private room and I rarely watch TV since they have me on Phenergan for nausea and it makes me sleep through my whole session, so I am never guilty of this and when I do watch something (usually heavy metal videos on VH1 Classic), I keep my volume reasonable. But you're right Stacy, they do need to shut off the speakers and give us all headphones so that treatment can be safe and disruption-free. I can watch Pantera videos just as easily through headphones as I can without for the safety of myself and others and these people can watch their stuff that way too. And for the hard-of-hearing people, there is closed-captioning on the TVs too, so there is no excuse for the noise and cacophany that goes on.