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Although, I do not claim to be an expert on intensive care, I have had about 12 to 15 different times when I was the adult with a loved one cared for in an intensive care unit. Many times it was after a surgery. Several times it was a potential life vs. death situation (ie, not just a "routine" ICU stay, if that is even possible).
Again, it was just my personal experience, but on the very rare situation where a nurse did not immediately appear when the nurse button was pushed a simple yell from the doorway "I need help, NOW!" resulted in nurses & doctors running into the room. I simply can not believe that the nurses just left patients in a PICU alone long enough for someone other than a nurse to suction a post-operative patient. Between my late mother and my husband I have waited in ICU rooms/waiting rooms for at least a total of three or four months at several different hospitals. I can not ever think of a time when help wasn't available when it was needed. Nurses just don't "disappear during shift changes".
Something is really fishy in their statements. Grandmother, step-father AND the mother all had time to suction Jahi before the nurses came back to the PICU. Really fishy.
As an ICU nurse myself, I agree. She wouldn't be sent to the PICU if she wasn't going to be closely observed. Most likely the family thought they knew how to take care of their "baby" better than the seasoned RNs, and we see the result.
I was responding to the OP who through the words out there. But I'll take your word for it, now that I see the suffix -plasty in the surgery list. But my questions are the same, those are heavily vascularized areas subject to bleeding, and I wonder if as reported the girl bled so profusely that she essentially bled to death, why this occurred if she was monitored post surgery as she should have been for complications such as bleeding?
I'm sure she was monitored, but probably wasn't on one-on-one observation with a nurse sitting at her bedside. They were probably doing checks of her at timed intervals. If the postop instructions were followed, probably nothing would have happened. But if, as has been reported, her family was giving her food to eat, trying to get her to talk (which she wasn't supposed to do), and SUCTIONING her, any or all of those things could have caused the bleeding. When you have a tonsillectomy a blood clot forms in the tonsillar fossa on each side. Suctioning or eating or talking could have dislodged that clot and caused her to start hemorrhaging.
Although, I do not claim to be an expert on intensive care, I have had about 12 to 15 different times when I was the adult with a loved one cared for in an intensive care unit. Many times it was after a surgery. Several times it was a potential life vs. death situation (ie, not just a "routine" ICU stay, if that is even possible).
Again, it was just my personal experience, but on the very rare situation where a nurse did not immediately appear when the nurse button was pushed a simple yell from the doorway "I need help, NOW!" resulted in nurses & doctors running into the room. I simply can not believe that the nurses just left patients in a PICU alone long enough for someone other than a nurse to suction a post-operative patient. Between my late mother and my husband I have waited in ICU rooms/waiting rooms for at least a total of three or four months at several different hospitals. I can not ever think of a time when help wasn't available when it was needed. Nurses just don't "disappear during shift changes".
Something is really fishy in their statements. Grandmother, step-father AND the mother all had time to suction Jahi before the nurses came back to the PICU. Really fishy.
germaine,
I couldn't rep you but wanted to acknowledge what an excellent post you wrote.
One doesn't have to work in an ICU to understand yelling "Help" always brings someone with experience.
Not only is Nursing Staff around, in an ICU, but Respiratory Therapists, Houston (Residents and Fellows) let alone the Critical Care Attending and often a pulmonary doc or 2-3 different surgeons at any hour of the daytime hrs. until about 8 p.m. Anesthesiologists are in and out too.
Look at the time frame. It doesn't make sense of when the complications reportedly happened vs. When nursing traditionally has shift changes in an ICU.
Always helpful to have posts from those who don't work in a hospital as you point out obvious points.
I'm sure she was monitored, but probably wasn't on one-on-one observation with a nurse sitting at her bedside. They were probably doing checks of her at timed intervals. If the postop instructions were followed, probably nothing would have happened. But if, as has been reported, her family was giving her food to eat, trying to get her to talk (which she wasn't supposed to do), and SUCTIONING her, any or all of those things could have caused the bleeding. When you have a tonsillectomy a blood clot forms in the tonsillar fossa on each side. Suctioning or eating or talking could have dislodged that clot and caused her to start hemorrhaging.
I believe, from our family's experience with ICU, that the standard ratio is one nurse to two patients. This was in 2001, when my mother was in hospital for a month (3 weeks of that time in ICU, mostly on vent) for Wegener's Granulomatosis. The nurses were never far away, and though we never needed them for anything urgent, they were still right there if we needed them to do something for her.
PICU and CICU may be different; I don't have any experience of those. Well my stepfather was postsurg CICU after his CABG, but I didn't spend any significant time there.
I've started to read some of the 1,000+ comments at the SFGATE. Com. Many write thoughts I have about this situation, including wondering if "the doctors" who performed the procedures are licensed or licensed in CA. There are some insightful comments.
But most agree this family has lost track of who really mattered. A 13 y.o. who isn't receiving the dignity and respect she deserves at the end of her life.
MSR
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Excellent Post
