HARTFORD, CT – “Seriously, another back injury claim?” questioned hospital administrator Lawrence Gates. “Why do our clumsy nurses always go and hurt themselves on the job?”
Gates has been burdened with over 38 nursing injuries this month alone from staff members injuring themselves lifting patients. “I don’t think our staff realize how much paperwork is involved when they ‘injure’ themselves. Not to mention all of the lost man hours. I wish they would just stop getting hurt.”
What fires Gates up even more is that every month they mandate all staff to watch a “How to Lift Patients Properly” video and he thinks the staff is just blowing it off and not following instructions.
“The video is extremely clear. It shows how to lift with your legs and not your back. Simple,” proclaimed Gates. “I don’t know what the hell our nurses are doing. I mean, really, how hard can it be to lift a 450-lb patient off the floor who is helping out with at least 30 lbs or moving their food tray first. This paperwork from these bogus injuries on my desk weighs at least 40 lbs and I have to carry it all by myself!”
Nursing staff have a 180-degree view from hospital administrators.
“Our patients are getting bigger and bigger these days. The injuries are only going to become more frequent and more severe,” said 5W charge nurse Tammy Meyerton. “Hospital administrators are clueless on how hard it is to lift these patients several times a day.”
“Increasing our nursing staff to patient ratio to 1 to 8 obviously didn’t help either. We now have more patients to lift and fewer people to help. Do you know how hard it is to find 6 available nurses to lift a 450-lb patient? Impossible under these work conditions.”
In regards to the mandatory lifting video, Meyerton became even more fired up. “That damn video… If I have to watch that 1980s VHS video with MIDI music, showing three smiling workers helping a 100-lb. woman up again, USING their legs… I’m seriously going to punch something. Start adding boxer fractures to your list of injuries soon!”
For years, nursing staff has been begging hospital administrators to install hydraulic patient lifting machines, but cost has been a road block. Gary Richards, an ICU nurse believes, “Instead of outfitting wards with these devices, administrators would rather allow injuries to occur and then chastise the individuals who get hurt.”
When Gates was asked about why hydraulic lifts weren’t being installed or available, Gates felt the lifts might reflect poorly on patient satisfaction scores. “Picture this, you are a patient here at our hospital. Can you imagine how embarrassing it must be to be placed in a lifting chair or device? Talk about a self-esteem killer, which we all know would lead to poor satisfaction scores. It would be equivalent to calling someone fat to their face. The price tag and the insult that goes with these devices is not worth it.”
Gates had one final statement for the Nursing staff: “Nurses, lift with your legs, get others to help, and if that isn’t enough, then I suggest you hit the gym for some squats and core exercises because I’m getting sick of all this paperwork.”
My day is filled with the pt that has shit 12 times in one shift and thinks it’s cute to buck against you like a rodeo bull as you try to turn them and clean them up……
I really don’t think any patient would ever want a nurse that is caring for them to get hurt..get the LIFTS
body mechanics!
What an unbelievable jerk!
We love our Nurses keep them Safe. Hospital’s need to keep them safe or where would the hospitals be without them.
LOL!! Too funny!
Miss Jae Clark, did you fill out an incident report? If you did, your employer was in the wrong!!
You need a workers comp lawyer!! That is so illegegal!!
My favorite comment: ” In regards to the mandatory lifting video, Meyerton became even more fired up. “That damn video…If I have to watch that 1980s VHS video with MIDI music, showing three smiling workers helping a 100lb woman up again, USING their legs..I’m seriously going to punch something. ”
Except a mask is NOT a blood-impermeable “hood”. As an ob/gyn, I’ve been sprayed with blood, urine, and amniotic fluid more times than I can count…and still got hit, with a mask on. Fluids can go over, under, and around….
Mr. Administrator it must be hard for you to “sit” on your ass all day! I love that you worry about your paperwork instead of your nurses! Is your first name “DICK”?!
Just wish instead of rounding upper management would grab some scrubs and walk in the shoes of a nurse! Maybe then when they sit in meetings cutting hours and staff they’d fight alittle more for their nurses.
It amazes me the people who think this is real. I’m a nurse and I can read. It says “Gomerblog Earth’s finest medical satire news site” at the top of the page. And I know injuries happen. But if you can’t laugh at this then go get another job. Bedside nurses get crapped on, peed on, yelled at, sworn at, etc. You have to laugh at that stuff!
Yes. Gomerblog is a satire news site…
This one definitely could be completely true!
Please tell me this is a joke.
Yea… Help you need knee replacements like your poor mum did… That’s probably it. Maybe buns of steel lol. Hope your mum is doing ok now
Im happy for you in the sense that at least your WC helped… After all my crap (very similar situation to when I was injured), HR was no help, I was calling WC myself and then when I spoke up about it I got blackballed, terminated ( had been with the facility just shy of 6 yrs) and almost 2 years later, I’ve paid for almost everything 100% out of pocket (8 months of which I had no job or insurance) and once terminated, WC wouldn’t return my calls since I was no longer employed at the facility… 12 years as a nurse (at that time)16 in the field and injury free until 6/7/2013… Now jacked up neck and shoulder from their neglect…
Unbelievable! What a jerk!
This guy can go F himself!!!!!
Was doing all the right things and the pt grabbed my arm and yanked me around, I was out for over a year with physical therapy, then multiple consults, surgery and more physical therapy. For a partial ligament tear and partial dislocation of my right shoulder. Thank you soooo much, to my patient and workers comp for THAT wonderful year!!!
You should be responsible enough to wear a mask into a procedure involving an HIV patient and blood exposure. Seriously??
“Why didn’t you evaluate the patient and utilize the lift equipment as they were about to go crashing to the floor and the only thing standing between them and a skull fracture was YOU?!?!?!!!”
That is horrible. How is that even your fault at all? :(
Everyone knows it’s always the nurse at fault…for everything. Those squats sure come in handy when your patient is resisting you, trying to pull a tube and you must reach their hand, etc. Moving dead weight is easy peasy. And moving a human being capable of independent movement at any moment also makes things easy.
A urology resident was irrigating a bladder of clots in an HIV/HEP C pt and called me in the room to “hand her something”. As I I handed it to her she let go of the clamp and the bloody urine sprayed in my face. Hospital says the exposure is my fault because apparently I should just wear a mask 24 hours a day….
Just laughed out loud about how good this is!
Tamara Cohen
We need a “lift team” consisting of administration. Haha
I blame the fat ass patients.
Sooooo true!!!
See NPR’s Feb 4th story, “Hospitals Fail to Protect Nursing Staff From Becoming Patients”
Let’s call the administrators out of their cushy offices to move the 500 lb pt that has diarrhea and has to b turned and cleaned EVERY HR. Then tell them to hit the gym as they leave the room.
Um. This is a true story, right ?
As someone who has had one rotator cuff done and now need the other one, how do you propose lifting patients up in bed without help? And, I’m an old nurse and stopped bedside nursing 3yrs ago. The heaviest patient I ever had to deal with was 450 lbs although we did have someone who was 700 lbs. these were ICU pts back in the 80s. Nowadays, nurses are having to deal with 400 lb plus pts much more frequently. You come to the PACU and help move someone who is 700lbs after bariatric surgery—-dead weight even in those special beds. Oh, and most nurses I know that are my age (61) are having at least one knee replaced and most times, both knees. Pounding concrete floors for 30 yrs is just incredibly hard on knees. And, I think most nurses try their best to use “good body mechanics” but when some 500lb pt is fighting or refuses to help move themselves, nurses get hurt. And you know what’s really sad is that nurses who hurt their backs usually end up lifting by themselves because they’ve been waiting 30 min. for help and that pt. Is tired of sitting in the chair and wants to get back in bed. God knows we don’t want that complaint on a pt. survey! So before you’re so smug about not enough gym time and poor body mechanics and it’s obviously the nurses’ faults, spend a 12 hr shift in a critical care unit or on a med-surg floor, you arrogant shit!
Terry N Teresa Rolan right on
I got a sub inguinal hernia from lifting a 600 lb patient. Luckily I had asked for a PT lift and was told no.
Yep that is why my mother had to have knee replacement. Lifting patients. Don’t think squats help at all. Js
Yeah Rifht
Check this out Jami !
As a PT that works with nursing injuries… Hit the gym, do some squats and for Gods sake do proper body mechanics
My favorite line by far…
“Nurses, lift with your legs, get others to help, and if that isn’t enough, then I suggest you hit the gym for some squats and core exercises because I’m getting sick of all this paperwork.”
Hahaha. It’s so freaking true.
Um, hello?? Gomerblog? I thought this was a SATIRE site! SMH.
This one is not satire at all. :-/
I’m attending a 4 hour *mandatory* “Safe Patient Mobilization” training on Monday….that should help! Right?!