I was at the hospital to do rounds on my patient who delivered Christmas Eve and was now going home Christmas Day. There is a certain amount of teaching that needs to be done prior to discharge, especially with a young, first time Mom. I went in and taught about breast feeding and baby care. I addressed things for Mom to watch out for in herself. I talked about the prescriptions I give for post delivery pain and pretty much wrapped up my teaching. The nurse then comes in and goes over stuff again (literature shows that it takes three repetitions to "learn":). In the middle of the nurse's teaching, family arrives to see the baby. There are many people (13). There is a couch, two chairs and a stool in the room along with Mom's bed. I hear the nurse say very calmly and professionally "I'm doing some discharge teaching that will take a few minutes and I want Q to be able to pay attention so I'm going to have you all go down to the family waiting area and when I'm done, I'll come get you so you can visit." There is grumbling, milling, fussing and everyone leaves the room. As they pass by me I hear one of the older women in the group say "This is the stupidest hospital I have ever been in, it is just like yesterday when they wouldn't let us in after the baby was born. I'm hoping no one else has their baby here."
Now I shake my head in amazement. Yesterday, we put everyone out of the room for about 3 hours while we delivered, sewed up the bottom, and taught supported breastfeeding giving this young couple the very best family start we could. The exclusion was done at Q's request. Today, we asked them to stay out of the room so that the couple could focus on our teaching, so they can GO HOME where.everyone.can.see.the.baby and we are suddenly the bad guys. I find this frustrating and upsetting with no way to rectify the lack of knowledge and bad attitudes of the visitors. Huff
1 comment:
I have done some thinking on this one...
I think that most people who come to visit at the hospital are RUDE. There, I've done it. I sure hope that no one comes along and reads this comment who knows me, because I think that even the most well meaning visitor is actually quite rude. Just think about it! Visitor comes to visit when it is convenient for them (typically) and pops in, wants to chat, hold the baby, etc... Well, what is the POINT of being in said hospital? REST and RECUPERATION!! If you must, come peek at the baby, give well wishes and bust a move out of there - spend 30 minutes or LESS (heavy on the less, there, eh!) with the mom and baby and go away. They are trying to rest and get acquainted and figure things out - whether a first time mom or a veteran.
I think that they might be well intentioned, but it doesn't always translate that way! When I had baby number two, I asked my nurse to shoo away all the well-meaning visitors-in-law by a set time. I didn't have the energy to chat and chat and chat. We had called to tell them the baby had arrived around 8 in the morning and they arrived at the hospital around 8 in the evening because they had things to do during the day. Well, I had things to do at night... namely, SLEEP! But, they didn't want to miss seeing the baby at the hospital... No waiting until we were home and we would be leaving the next day! Similarly, with our first baby... we lived much further away and they truly couldn't make it there the first day and for some reason they didn't arrive the next day. They called as we were getting discharge teaching to tell us they were on their way to the hospital - so, Pops being the first timer said, "OK." Uh, thy were still over an hour away. They arrived, the nurses knew we were waiting on them so didn't finish the teaching you speak of and saved it for the next shift. So, they started over with the whole business. I was exhausted, crabby, hormonal and just plain pissed that I wasn't home because they wanted a visit at the hospital before coming to our home. (Yes, they arrived there early the next morning.) Finally, they arrived, we got all discharge papers complete, they went to a hotel (whew!), we left the hospital - FINALLY at 10 PM. I was originally ready and able to go home around 3-ish in the afternoon. Oh, the selfishness of some visitors!! Grrrrrrrrrrr... I am thankful for hospital staff who are willing to play the "bad guy" for me...
As an adult, I have visited only 4 people in the hospital... 3 visits were BEGGED for by the "lonely" mothers via emails. The other visit was my sister-in-law & part of our visit was to take her somewhat unruly little (bored) boys out for a bit of a run around. All visits were very short and well before bedtime of even a small child!!
Can we ever train people to think and behave "RIGHT"!!!!
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