no good deed...

"room 28's wife says her water just broke.  what do i do?".

our newest nurse looked nervous as she grabbed me out of the hallway.  i went down to the room and talked to the wife.  sure enough, she was 37+ weeks pregnant and was leaking fluid out onto the floor.  i called the ED, who told me to call L&D.  i talked to the charge nurse up there and told her to expect the patient and her s/p motorcycle crash husband with his chest tube in tow.

apparently this is where everyone started freaking out.

first my assistant manager says that we can't go to L&D, we have to go to the ED "because of EMTALA".  seriously.  there is a law about that?  ridiculous.

then transport freaks out because the chest tube is to portable suction.  mmmkay...not like you take people with chest tubes on suction to tests EVERY SINGLE DAY or anything...

so the wheelchair caravan of terrified first time parents/trauma patients and spouses heads off to the ED...where they are immediately sent up to L&D (um, told you so.  ok).  the nurse settles her patient in and reminds him that L&D can't give him meds or any cares, and gives him all of our numbers to call when he needs anything.  she comes back to the floor to update the trauma team

...which is where everyone resumes freaking out.

the intern apparently asks "did you get permission for that", which is where i will begin side rant.  permission...seriously.  this from the service that acts like any nursing request is inconvenient to them.  the service that will let patients get as sick as humanly possible before intervening just to 'make sure' or something like that.  the service that has been in the ED with traumas for the past 4 hours and has made it clear a million times before that floor priorities are NOT priorities.  you wanted us to ask PERMISSION for the STABLE patient to go WITHIN THE HOSPITAL with his very pregnant and terrified wife to help her give birth to their baby.  mmm.

i'm still not understanding why everyone is so riled up, but i feel responsible because the nurse asked me what to do and this is what i came up with.  so when i saw the attending come to the floor, i excused myself from my patient's room and went to see what was up.

"WHERE IS ROOM 28!?!?"

 i haven't really seen this attending raise his voice before, and i am about to pee my pants in the nurses station because i'm the one who did this.

new nurse (bless her) stood her ground and replied simply "L&D bed 12".

"WHY IS HE THERE?!?!"

i couldn't take it anymore "this whole thing is my fault..." and i explained that i had done this before with another patient several years ago.  that the patient can come back to the floor for assessments and whenever he's needed by the doctors.  that the L&D nurses are not responsible for him and that we need to provide all his meds and cares.

the attending relaxed.  "oh, that's reasonable.  we had been told that he had a bed on L&D".

they seriously thought that we transferred the patient to L&D.  

after we all finished laughing hysterically, i was a little offended.

so the nurse went over to L&D to give the patient his night meds, and who was there but the attending. telling the patient that he should come back to the floor.

I.  GIVE.  UP.

you ask those people things, and they act like you're the biggest inconvenience in the world.  you try to be autonomous and make reasonable decisions for yourself and this is what comes of it.  NOW they care, when every other thing that you bring up gets you an eye roll.  NOW they want to be involved, when they were previously very busy in the ED and not to be disturbed.  NOTHING that we do is right, EVER, and i'm over it.

i tried to help a couple have a decent birth experience, and all that i got out of it was a headache and the knowledge that the trauma team thinks that its nurses are stupid enough to transfer one of their patients to L&D.

so it's true.  no good deed goes unpunished.