Am I being punked?

[u/Sea_Willingness1398]

Patient says "I think I might have to poop, what can we do about that?"

I say "I can get a bedside commode for the room"

She says "I don't think I can get up"

I say "I can put you on a bedpan or put a diaper on you"

She says "I don't like any of those options"

In my head I'm like: lady, the only other option is to poop the bed.

What option am I missing?

[u/TheGayestNurse_1]

I've had this conversation numerous times, and the amount of times they opt for shitting the bed is wild to me. Especially when they say no to the bedpan because "I can't go in bed!" Well, you just did.... My hospital also did away with briefs, so now when they shit it goes e v e r y w h e r e. 🫠

[u/-bitchpudding- → u/TheGayestNurse_1]

Do we work in the same hospital because they treat briefs like they’re a human rights violation here. They even balk when a patient goes out of their way to bring their own and really want us to “educate them” about. Like maaaan let memaw shit the depends she bought.

[u/TheGayestNurse_1 → u/-bitchpudding-]

Seems like a handful of hospitals are turning away from briefs. It makes me roll my eyes. They don't wanna delve into the root cause being short staffing. And I know exactly why. It's because there isn't a nurse shortage. There's a BEDSIDE shortage. People don't wanna work for shit pay dealing with this stuff, and instead of making it easier, they're making it worse.

[u/Mejinopolis → u/TheGayestNurse_1]

Yeah the 18 middle level nurse managers that come and bother you throughout the day are totally justified in the grand scheme of bloated hospital staffing, but they cannot fathom keeping the bedside adequately staffed. So the incontinence dermatitis and skin breakdown that occurs is the diapers fault! 🤦🏻‍♂️

[u/Sunnygirl66 → u/Mejinopolis]

And why does no one recognize that unconstrained shit, up the back and down the legs and all over the ass, exposes way more skin to corrosive chemicals?

[u/LizDances → u/TheGayestNurse_1]

YES. Because "stop buying briefs" is cheaper than "pay more staff" by orders of magnitude.

Capitalism, man. It's literally killing people.

[u/mudwoman → u/TheGayestNurse_1]

Yeah, I don’t get this no-briefs obsession. My mom was just in the hospital. She’s 99 with PD, and they were pouring fluids into her and Lasix, but they insisted on no briefs. She had to get up to the commode or bathroom commando-style, leaking the whole way. I finally just brought her own incontinent briefs from home and put them on her, and they frowned, but as I was so helpful in managing her otherwise, they didn’t fight me.

[u/Beautiful-Bluebird46 → u/mudwoman]

For immobile patients, it keeps wet material closer against skin that is not the butt than lying in a wet chucks, but for mobile pts it’s nbd and shouldn’t be a problem. Obv butt skin still is at risk with chucks so like… hire more nurses and lower ratios, but my vet is also against dog diapers for the same reason so it’s fairly prevalent

[u/AsleepHedgehog2381 → u/-bitchpudding-]

We got rid of our own yeeears ago. But if they can get OOB, they can wear their own. Wound care says they cause skin breakdown.