I don’t think the commenter claimed to work in nursing.
If the patient won’t take it, can’t you document the refusal and move on?
Comment on [deleted]
vestmoria@linux.community 11 months ago[deleted]
jeffw@lemmy.world 11 months ago
account_93@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You are clearly in the wrong job.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It doesn’t, you take the pills to the person, if they don’t take them immediately ask them to take the pills now, if their answer is a refusal chart it and leave, if their answer is something like “I’ll take them later”, explain that you need them to take it now, if they still refuse chart it and leave (with the pills obviously), possibly come back later, you have other patients to take care of and can’t waste time on a staring contest. But if you give pills to someone, put it in the chart that they’ve taken them at X time but they actually took it 3 hours later, doctors might act on that chart and cause problems to the patient and hospital. E.g. if the patient will have some surgery the next day the time they took their blood thinners is extremely relevant, the patient can’t be expected to know this, you as a nurse might know, the doctor who will read the chart and decide on the procedure knows but might be acting on wrong information if you didn’t watched the patient take the medicine. If the next day the doctor sees a refusal to take the medicine at the appropriate time he might choose to alter or stop the procedure, explain to the person why he’ll have to stay another day at the hospital and that this time he better take the pills at the appropriate time or he’ll have to stay another day, and not risk putting someone’s life in danger because a nurse decided to write a random time for when the patient took the pills. Think about it this way, if you wrote that the patient took the medicine at 7 but he actually took it at 10, and he died or had complications because he was still on blood thinners during surgery, who do you think will be to blame? The patient who was not told the medicine had a specific time? The doctor who has a paper signed by you that the medicine was given at 7? Nope, 100% the nurse who wrote the wrong time on the chart will be solely liable for this.
When I read the question I thought it’s stupid, he’s an adult, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense that nurses should chart only when they’re sure.