What do you think?

"You are a member of the ward team that has to decide which patient is to be put in to a side room, but you need to debate and discuss the reasons for and against for each patient..."

It is not every day that you are in the position to make such a decision, one that could potentially be critical for your patient. As student nurses you are often involved in the decision making but the sole responsibility is always left to someone who is qualified and more senior within the team. Occasionally bed managers make the decision for you, but that is a whole different blog post!

"Mr Smith is a 53yr old gentleman who has had an open and closed*. The Surgical team have discovered that is tumor is now at a stage where it is inoperable. He is drifting in and out of consciousness and reaching the end stages of his life. Mr Smiths family are extensive and would like to be with him as often as they can..."

Do you think a dying man should be left to die in dignity in a side room, surrounded by his family and away from the prying eyes of other patients.

OR

"Mr Kemp is a 24yr old gentleman who has ulcerative colitis. He is in hospital because he is due to have elective surgery. He is currently anaemic and is suffering from terrible diarrhoea which is making him self conscious. The smell is offensive and asking for a comode or bed pan all the time is a little embarrasing..."

Could this young man be saved the embarrasment of having to run to the toilet every few minutes. After all hospitals are not places for young people.

OR

" Mr Jones has recently had surgery. Swabs were taken from his wound site and the results have come back positive for MRSA..."

Surely infection control procedures should be followed in order to protect patients from infecting MRSA.

The decision is yours!

I bet I know what your thinking. You instantly chose the dying patient, yes?

Every patient has the right to die with dignity surrounded by the people they love in a comfortable environment, right? Well of course they do. So why not send them home or to a hospice. Hospitals are places for the acutely ill and patients who no longer require 24hr care can be reffered on to other care providers. This does not mean that I advocate pushing dying patients out the door, it is not that at all, but in an ideal world we would love to put everyone in to a side room who deserved to be in there. However, we can not provide that type of service.

The young guy who was quite unwell. Yes, he is young. So what? Age does not play any kind of part in the overall care that a patient recieves. Yes, age is considered in alot of treatments (e.g. contraindications of surgery, drug dosages etc) but saying that he deserves a side room because having diarrhoea is embarrasing for a 24yr old guy is not good enough. Turn the tables a bit, if he was 84 would your opinion be different? I guess you would just give him a bed pan because why not he's lived his life. What if the patient was an 84yr old female? Would your opinion change again?

Some illnesses come hand in hand with some pretty nasty and horrible symptoms. Diarrhoea, vomiting, flatus, oozing, seeping, incontinece, dribbling, sweating.. and the list goes on. All of those things are embarrasing, they all lower the patients self esteem. This is something we do need to take in to consideration but to put someone in to a side room to maintain their street credability is not good enough.

Last but not least, MRSA. This could either be aquired from the patients home before being admitted, or it can be hospital aquired. In this instance it was hospital aquired and at the wound site. Isolating this patient is paramount. He does not require an armed guard but do be sensible.

I could sit here for hours and tell you my opinion on the subject matter, but I guess we all have a different take on things.

What do you think?