11:44 p.m. 2004-10-29
The Bitch says: never go to a nursing home in Minn.
I spent some time surfing tonite looking for information and found something that I found not only unethical and unprofessional but completely immoral. As anyone who has read this diary a few times knows that I work in the health care field.....to be specific..a nursing home....rehab too but mainly long term care. Basic nursing care says you dispose of biohazard material properly.....needles in a sharps container, bloody bandages, swabs etc in the proper place which does not include the floor of the patients room or on the bathroom basin. That's basic nuring 101. Basic nursing 102 says you never place a post op patient in the same room with a patient with an antibiotic resistant staph infection.......otherwise known as MRSA.
I was, for some strange reason reading the St. Paul, Minn. newspaper and found this:
At Trevilla of New Brighton, a brain-surgery patient whose immune system was weakened by chemotherapy died Sept. 28 of infection and pneumonia two weeks after he was placed with a roommate who had a drug-resistant staph infection with open sores on his leg.....it gets better!!!
Trevilla staff members once dressed the surgery patient in the soiled clothes of the roommate whose wounds leaked a "yellow-green drainage."
The article stated that the family members had complained about bloody gauze on the basin next to the surgical pt. toothbrush and bloody bandages and needle cartridges on the floor of the room. And, check this out:
Placing the two men in the same room violated Trevilla's and the state's infection-control policies and placed residents' health in "immediate jeopardy," the state found.
If it was against the facility policy, who the hell oked the placement of the surgical pt. in the room? When the family members questioned what was going on they were told:
"We kept questioning this continuously and were told there was no danger" to the surgery patient, investigators said family members told them.
I don't know about Minn. but I do know that first of all those pts. wouldn't have been put together in my facility and every nurse on that floor should have been fired and lost their license.
They may think it will be ok but, I want to send the family the name of a good lawyer. That is beyond neglect, beyond crappy nursing care. It's criminal bordering on murder.
LATERZ
