An Open Letter to the Family Member who called Nurses "Pill Pushers"
Thanks for coming in at 11 PM while we're trying to make your mother comfortable enough to sleep. Thank you for coming to see your mom for 30 minutes, I've just been here for hours. Making sure she gets pain pills without oversedating her. It's been a problem in the past, and I don't want to create another one for her now. She can't move that well on her own. So it's not a problem when a nurse or a nursing assistant use a gait belt and a Sara Steady just to get your mom from the bed to the chair and back again. Actually, two people are needed just for this one task to make sure she's safe. And sometimes two people are needed to reposition her every two hours - in reality even more frequently because she's so uncomfortable laying down or sitting. She gets anxious. So anxiety meds have been ordered and changed for her. But it's not enough. So she asks me to hold her hand. She gets lonely, so we called the chaplain, volunteer services, and art