Hospital Backaches.

jambutty · 18-07-2007, 13:15

Picture the scene. The Ambulance arrives at A & E, the paramedics jump out and trundle the stretcher through to Casualty.

A group of nurses and a doctor gather round and lift the patient onto the examination bed. Just observe how it is done not just in real life but also on the many hospital soaps on TV.

The stretcher trolley is placed alongside the examination bed and a couple of people lean over it to grab the stretcher and lift and pull whilst others lift and push. Both groups are lifting with their backs bent. Is it any wonder that some people suffer from back problems because of lifting patients?

You get the same sort of situation when a bed ridden patient is sent to theatre/X-Ray/Scans etc or transferred to somewhere else.

Is it beyond the brains of the hospital staff to have the stretcher trolley placed end on to the examination bed and as people gather round they all lift and walk forward to place the patient on the examination bed?

Tealeaf · 18-07-2007, 13:17

I think the idea, Jambutty, is to treat the patient, not kill him.

accymel · 18-07-2007, 13:23

Hey better than being dropped

Trust me that typically happened to me when transferring me from theater bed trolly to the ward bed - i soon came round from the anesthetic

WillowTheWhisp · 18-07-2007, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

Is it beyond the brains of the hospital staff to have the stretcher trolley placed end on to the examination bed and as people gather round they all lift and walk forward to place the patient on the examination bed?

That sounds like it could be better for the patient too. It's not exactly pleasant being oiked across.

Tealeaf · 18-07-2007, 13:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by accymel

Hey better than being dropped

Trust me that typically happened to me when transferring me from theater bed trolly to the ward bed - i soon came round from the anesthetic

Typically? What are you saying or doing to our poor, overworked doctors and angels to cause them to typically drop you on the floor?

accymel · 18-07-2007, 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tealeaf

Typically? What are you saying or doing to our poor, overworked doctors and angels to cause them to typically drop you on the floor?

LOL it was my 1st & last visit for in-stay visit, & typical was my luck - i presumed they did that to every patient or was i special treatment

MargaretR · 18-07-2007, 15:35

On one of my coach trips I met an ex nurse who was severely disabled with a back injury caused by decades of lifting patients. She had crutches and a mobility scooter.
I believe they have training in lifting but no matter how skilled you are at it, it must take its toll over a long period of time. As the population gets more obese it must be VERY difficult for nursing staff and hospital porters.

jambutty · 18-07-2007, 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by [email protected]

On one of my coach trips I met an ex nurse who was severely disabled with a back injury caused by decades of lifting patients. She had crutches and a mobility scooter.
I believe they have training in lifting but no matter how skilled you are at it, it must take its toll over a long period of time. As the population gets more obese it must be VERY difficult for nursing staff and hospital porters.

No amount of training will protect people when they have to lean over and lift with outstretched arms. At least stood upright the back is straight as it would be if the patient was transferred from bed to trolley etc from the end and not from the side.

Patients should be transferred from bed to trolley or trolley to bed with the bed and trolley placed end to end. A person on each corner, a simple small lift and a short walk and a gentle lowering. A heavier than normal person? Use six people.

Apart from that, what about the jolting of the patient? It’s not funny being jerked onto a bed when every movement is extremely painful.

lettie · 18-07-2007, 17:09

Actually, we are not supposed to lift anyone these days. We use the 'Pat-Slide' this is a long, thin plastic board which we place partially under the patient, we roll patients to do this. Half of the pat slide will be on the trolley, the other half on the bed. We then slide the patient across on the sheet they are lying on. There is always a sheet on an ambulance trolley, thus saving our backs.

jambutty · 18-07-2007, 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by lettie

Actually, we are not supposed to lift anyone these days. We use the 'Pat-Slide' this is a long, thin plastic board which we place partially under the patient, we roll patients to do this. Half of the pat slide will be on the trolley, the other half on the bed. We then slide the patient across on the sheet they are lying on. There is always a sheet on an ambulance trolley, thus saving our backs.

Yes but you still have to lean over the bed to grab the patient and pull him towards you. Doing any physical work with a bent back is not good.

lettie · 18-07-2007, 17:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

Yes but you still have to lean over the bed to grab the patient and pull him towards you. Doing any physical work with a bent back is not good.

The back is straight when using the Pat-Slide, we use our arms and step back to slide the patient, that is the correct procedure. We have mandatory manual handling training every year where the correct procedures are taught. Anyone doing it incorrectly doesn't have a leg to stand on when they incur an injury. I have never bent over a bed to slide a patient because I have never needed to.

Mr Aleks · 18-07-2007, 18:07

Case closed then really on that note.

Margaret Pilkington · 18-07-2007, 19:44

Awwww Lettie I was going to tell them all that......you beat me to it

Margaret Pilkington · 18-07-2007, 19:45

Those contraptions are an absolute boon.......I was nursing a long time before such equipment was used and many nurses sustained back injuries because they were expected to lift patients who were far to heavy. and usually a back injury is for life.

West Ender · 18-07-2007, 20:33

Or they could do what the staff at the Lourdes Hospital in Liverpool did to me.........

OK, I wasn't desperately ill. I'd had an impacted wisdom tooth extracted in a long, complicated operation in the Warrington BUPA hospital. It was infected and when I saw the surgeon a week later he said my jaw must be cleaned out, under anaesthetic, so I had to go to the Lourdes next day.

I went in at 8 a.m. (no food or drink and a 20 mile trip - super!) and they prepared me for the op. After giving me my pre-med - 2 enormous valium tablets the size of horse-pills - some bright spark then decided I'd better have another x-ray. They plonked me in a wheelchair and took me down the corridor. Once in the x-ray room they pointed to the table and told me to get on it. I am 5'1 and the table was at least 4'6 high.

Have you ever tried to stand up when the bones in your legs have been reduced to the consistency of blancmange? I am convinced, to this day, that my knees actually bent backwards. After about a minute of giving a good impression of Max Wall in Professor Wallofski mode I managed to clutch the table with both arms (my hands were just useless flippers by this time) and began to haul myself up. I eventually straddled it, face down, and then spent another 2 or 3 minutes trying to turn myself over without falling off. I finally achieved it, only to find I was the wrong way round.

During all this procedure I was watched, in horrid fascination, by a nun, 2 lay nurses and the radiographer. No one offered to help but I would have been eternally grateful for any sort of lifting, even a bump-up, rather than that horrendous (and, in retrospect, probably extremely funny to watch) effort. They had to lift me off the table after the x-ray. I had become a human jelly-fish by then.