why she peed in her pants
this is not second hand information.
this is what really happened. straight from the horse’s mouth:
” i asked to be relieved in the morning, and was already at the point of wetting my pants when the RN finally relieved me. the second time i needed to go, she kept saying “later, i’m busy”.
i can’t pee in the patient’s restroom because the patient i’m watching was a suicidal teenager with anorexia nervosa. i’m not supposed to leave her, even for a minute. she was in bed 1, (near the door), and the patient in bed 2 was a toddler (with a parent at the bedside all the time) who was using the restroom very often. i can’t leave my patient or leave the restroom door open because i was not comfortable doing any (leaving the patient and/or leaving the restroom door open) of that.
finally, when my break came at 2 PM, i thought that surely, i can go, but the RN kept saying she was busy. at 2:35, i stood at the door and yelled to nobody in particular that i really NEEDED to go. one RN motioned me to go while she was on her way to my patient’s room.
i was half running to the restroom, but it was too late. my underwear was already wet. i was still peeing, thinking what to do next, when i heard this knock at the restroom door. when i opened it, the charge nurse was there, asking me what i was doing in the restroom. she did not give me time to answer. she continued, (in a loud voice) that what i did was wrong, because i abandoned my patient, which, under no circumstance should i leave alone.
without even realizing it, i was crying. i stood there thinking…”what do you want me to do, take off my underwear and shove it to your face?”, but i asked her instead if she checked the room because there was actually somebody watching the patient while i was in the restroom. it turned out, she saw me running out of the room to the restroom, and without investigating, she assumed i just left the patient alone. trying to explain it while crying was difficult, but to hear the charge nurse continuing her lecture on how it was so wrong that i left the patient alone, and with my wet underwear bugging me, i finally told her: “that’s it, i’m leaving!”
the next day, my husband and i went to file a formal complaint to human resources, and went to see our nurse manger. after the dialogue between nurse managers, the nurse manager and the charge nurse ended up writing me a formal letter of apology. too late, because after a couple of days, i ended up having a UTI.
i swear i will never go back there, even if they fire me because i will not float in that unit anymore. as if the fact that i peed in my pants, (which has never happened to me in my whole 30 plus years of being an adult) was not enough, did she really have to humiliate me by knocking at my door while i was in the restroom relieving myself?
it was beyond humiliating, but even though i was wet, i was ready to go back to the room and finish my shift. i was thinking of possible solutions because it was obviously emabarassing and uncomfortable, but i never thought of leaving, because i knew my responsibility. but when the charge nurse knocked and accused me of being irresponsible, after all those times i had to keep holding my pee just to be responsible, i lost it. i lost it because she gave me no other choice.”
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as you can see, stories passed on from one mouth to the next has its added and subtracted facts. but the above quote was directly from the PCA who is currently “enjoying” the kind of fame that nobody ever dreams of.
it has been about two weeks now, but she was still very emotional about the whole thing, and understandably so. her voice was shaky, tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes, and i can almost feel her heart racing while she related the embarassing experience. i honestly felt her pain.
i said it before, and i’ll say it again…if you ask me, this is a very disturbing situation, on many levels:
1. the assigned RN not knowing how to ask for help to relieve the PCA. i mean, how difficult is it to ask another staff to watch the patient while the PCA goes to the restroom because she is extremely busy she can’t spare 3 minutes of her time?
2. the charge nurse rudely jumping to conclusion and knocking at the restroom door like she thought the PCA was some sort of slave who has no personal right whatsoever? and why was it so hard to apologize the moment she realized that she made a mistake by not checking her facts first before lashing out on the PCA to emphasize her authority?
3. the other nurses who obviously heard the countless pleas for help…how difficult was it to just go and relieve someone for a matter of minutes, even if the patient was not assigned to them?
i don’t know all the answers, but i do know something. we always have PCAs who watch 1:1 patients. they come from different places. from other units, or from registry. and you know what, we all try to make sure to ask them if they need to step out of the room. sometimes, we even relieve them for a smoke break. usually, we don’t even ask whose patient he/she is watching. or at least we get somebody to relieve if we can’t do it. so yeah, i know it is not THAT hard to do.
no matter how many times i run it over my head, i still can’t figure out how some people can just let this whole thing happen. it’s like a lot of people are getting so uncaring, it is getting really scary. but then again, it could be that i’m just overreacting.
what do you think?
