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The weight loss surgery hospital floor
The hospital is NOT a spa. Sure, your insurance company pays far more for your hospital stay than a week at a five star hotel would cost you, but this is a hospital. Like most hospitals, it doesn’t resemble those on popular television shows.
In the past almost every hospital had a nursing program associated with it and there was a steady supply of good nurses available to help patients. Unfortunately, now there is a nationwide nursing shortage and because of this, there are fewer and fewer nurses who are available for patient care. As medicine became more complicated and nurses were required to do far more than pass medicines, take vital signs and make beds, the education of nurses went from hospital-based programs to university-based programs. This was one of the first steps that vastly limited the nurses available for floor duty. What does this mean? Once a nurse teaches a patient to get out of bed, it is the patient’s responsibility to keep getting out of bed and not wait for someone to help them unless they have some very specific needs. There are no nurses waiting around to help you do what you can do for yourself. Family members can, and should, help patients with some of their needs—but there are defined limits to this.
When you push the button for the nurses, do not expect them to be right there. Twenty minutes is the average amount of time for a nurse to respond to a call, longer in some hospitals depending on how sick the other patients are.
Most patients will have a pump installed so that they can administer a narcotic for pain relief— called PCA for patient controlled analgesia. This works very well and allows you to administer a specified dose of narcotic on frequent intervals. Do not let family members push this, only the patient should push this button. If you wake up, push the button and fall back asleep—only to wake up in pain again, you are probably doing fine. In fact, if you are sleeping a lot you should probably get out of bed and do some laps.
Family Members
—It is ok to love em and leave em
Family and friends can be of great assistance to a patient recovering from surgery. They can help the patient move out of the bed and encourage them to walk more around the hospital.
However, at nighttime I insist that family members leave the hospital and return to their homes or hotels to sleep. A patient’s room is the last place I want family members to be sleeping. The reason is simple: a family member will get very little sleep in a hospital. The patient has 24-hour nursing care, something they will not have at home. It is important for family members to get some rest so they can help take care of the patient when he gets home—where there are no nurses to help. A number of years ago I did a fair bit of trauma surgery. One night a young lady was admitted after being in a car accident. She required some surgery to repair a liver injury. The surgery wasn’t too complicated but the husband spent every waking hour at his wife’s bed. Five days later I was on trauma call again and the husband became my patient—he fell asleep in his car and ran off the road. He was lucky. He just spent a very sore night in the hospital, but it could have been avoided.
Patients need sleep after surgery and when family members are there they get far less rest. Limit your visits to twenty minutes at a time, and if you plan on being at the hospital longer, go to the lounge and let your beloved sleep a bit. Finally, some patients are in more pain when a family member is present than when they are gone. We don’t know why this is, but for some people it is absolutely true.
Family and friends are a great support. They can assist patients with getting out of bed, they can encourage them to walk, and they can even spot trouble before a nurse can. But remember, you will be needed even more at home than in the hospital—so, love 'em and leave 'em. Get your rest—your time is coming.
