Overall, how well prepared were the general ward ... - ICUsteps
Overall, how well prepared were the general ward to deal with your transition from ICU/HDU?
The ward I went into had no idea how to deal with a patient with almost no mobility, still getting to grips with the situation, confused and heavily medicated
I have voted Poor. I had ordered one of my first meals after a month of being fed through a central line in ICU just before i was dumped in the general ward a short while later, this was forgotten. It was dark, i didnt know how to call for help - i couldnt get out of bed. No one came to explain the routine, timings, nurse allocation, nothing - routine is the only thing you can kind of understand when so ill. I suffered from an adjustment disorder from ICU to general and am told this is not uncommon. The emotions really started to flow but I think reality was beginning to set in - I didn't know it but this meant I was slowly recovering without all the heavy meds. The plus was that ICU staff i had known for five weeks popped in to see me for the two weeks I was there.
I felt very alone, even though the ward I was in was full. I got stuck in the loo because my zimmer fell over which panicked me until I found the arms on the wall came down,
They have no idea how to deal with ex ICU patients. I was still so drugged up from what they gave me I fell head first into the toilet door twice, fell off the toilet and hit the sink which left an 8 inch bruise across my chest (which is still swollen and hurts 8 months later)
For the first 4 days I did not know where I was and messed the bed a number of times. When some of it came back to me later I remember pressing the button a number of times, but they were always too busy.
After about a week on the ward a sister came on duty and stood there telling me that I had given them terrible problems the first night after I came from ICU, although she would not tell me what I had done. She did not seem to have any understanding that at that time this supposingly happened I did not know I was even in hospital, let alone been there for over 2 weeks. At times I was having horrific nightmares and yet it seems that there was no allowances made for this.
Whatever the case maybe surely these nurses should be trained or at the very least advised what the patient might be like, their needs, and that they might be suffering from hallucinations or delusions.
Sadly Mike I had the same experience. My first night on the ward was the worst. I had severe diarrhoea and this meant that I needed to be cleaned up on a regular basis I had a catheter fitted so urinating was not a problem but I could not get out of bed and I had no control over my bowels. During the day a high dependency ward has a nurse to patient ratio of one to 4. At night however this may drop as low as one to 16. Unlike the ICU I now had a nurse call button and was able to call the nurse each time I needed cleaning up. I slept for what seemed about four hours and after having cleaned me up twice my nurse obviously decided that that was enough for one shift and when I pressed the button again she said she was too busy and I would have to wait. The result was that I lay there in my own filth waiting for daylight. I was not sure what was wrong with me or why was there and the whole experience was like some sick horror movie.
I have only just found this site from an ICU nurse contacted by my psychologist, the whole site is wonderful and I now realise im not alone and that similar experiences have been had by most people, I just want to say how emotional I feel but sad too that your experiences are an exact copy of my experience, sat here in tears as I shouldnt be happy someone else felt like I did and was treated the same too. " years on im a wreck psychologically and feel like I should be alot more grateful im here, yet i dont know myself any more now I lost "me" 2 yrs ago when i went into hospital for a day operation and ended up having a perforation over looked in my tomach and ending up on life support with septice and spreading the cancer and given not alot of chance of survival, 2 years on here I am.... but the lack of real memories and the hallucinations and not knowing what was real and what wasnt and still now i cant sleep without tamazapan as sleep to me is like a room of spiders to someone who hates them....scary place i dont want to go even now ....thankyou from my heart for posting it has meant more to me than you will realise, the degrading way I was treat and noone coming to see to me was the most horrific thing ever! x
When I arrived on the ward I was placed in a cubicle with curtains around. I could see young chap in a bed across from me. I made some conversation with him but it was very difficult as I was still fighting the effects of the drugs given to me in the ICU. I had a great deal of difficulty moving around the bed but didn’t really understand why. A nurse came and asked me I would like some lunch. This would be my first real food in eight days and while I was not particularly hungry the thought of eating something was rather exciting. A solid step on the pathway to getting back to normal if you will. The tray was placed beside my bed and the nurse left. I struggled with all my might to get myself into a semi sitting up position. This took me all my strength. After struggling for about 10 minutes I was able to reach the tray. I realised that in my weakened condition that most of the food on the tray was impossible for me to eat. There was a small container with diced fruit that I decided would be the simplest thing to try and eat. I struggled for another five minutes with both hands to try and get a small plastic spoon with one piece of diced fruit into my mouth. Only to realise that I was too weak to feed myself.
I haven't been in ICU but my daughter was. She has a severe head injury, is PEG fed, has a trachy and is totally reliant on staff but was not sick enough for ITU so went to HDU.
However, I am also a student nurse and reading all these experiences really give me "food for thought". I will certainly look at patients and their experiences with a fresh eye!
Thank you for sharing.
Are there any ICU nurses that can comment on whether the nurses on the normal wards are advised by ICU staff on the various problems to expect, and how they would expect these nurses to treat us after reading the above comments?
Ettenna thank you, I hope this helps you in the future.
On leaving Icu I went to step down, never got to a ward as I had mrsa and a private room in a ward never became available so I stayed in step down, no complaints at all, ratio of one nurse to two patients, no problems at all, have read comments and understand how horrible it must have been and such a shock to patients, I was told I would go to a ward and even in my 'not with it' state I dreaded it but it never happened, do some hospitals move patients to wards from Icu or are these comments about stepdown ?
I Was moved from I.C.U. to H.D.U. which was fine but I had C-diff and was moved to a single room on the Gastrointestinal ward. I had lost most of my muscle and could not walk and could not use my arms very well. As I also suffer from Rheumatoid arthritis I was almost helpless. I still had tubes for both waste products and a line in for drugs but the nurses did not seem to understand my predicament and treat me as though I was a malingerer of some sort. I did eventually get moved to the Rheumatology ward and they obviously had more experience of dealing with patients with severe mobility problems. The difference was unbelievable.
I had my tracheotomy tube removed after being ventilated for 36 days at 2pm had my first drink for 2months at 6pm, at 9pm I was told they needed the bed & I was going to be transferred to the ward.I was frantic as you can imagine I managed to get a stay untill 6.30 the following morning.I think it would be fair to say that neither the ward, myself or my family were in any way prepared for my transfer!
It wasn't too bad for me in terms of physical care at least. I left the ICU after 3 nights/4 days and went to a general ward to continue a hefty regime of IV antibiotics to clear up pneumonia acquired from aspirating on my own vomit in A and E.... Nice! So the only physical care I really needed was my meds and the IV antibiotics.
However, I'd ended up on ICU after a huge mixed overdose and the general ward had no clue how to nurse a mental health patient. I was on 1-15 obs on the ward and a 1-1 off the ward (which means on the ward someone checked I was ok every 15 minutes but if I wanted to go off the ward I had to have a member of staff with me due to risk of suicide/self harm).
I'm a smoker. I was self caring, could wash, feed and dress myself, even made my own bed to alleviate the boredom. All I needed was a member of staff to take me to the front of the building every couple of hours. I know wards are busy and taking me for a cig would have to wait at times. But after 6 hours without a cig one morning the nurses wondered why I was 'a bit' agitated and annoyed!
Physical health care was great. But mental health awareness or even support from the psychiatric team... non existent!! I'm a psych nurse myself so I ended up distracting myself from the depression by educating the staff!
On the plus side though I'm a transsexual woman (male to female) and so for the privacy and dignity of me and other female patients I got a single room with en suite. Quite a nice perk just for being trans :o)
The first night was scary, there was no one watching me and no machines monitoring me I was terrified. I was worried about a pain in my back because I had a lot of fluid in my lungs but the dr wouldn't help me that night an I had I wait until morning for the renal consultant to send me for a scan. I couldn't walk or look after myself and all the staff seemed busy with the other women who could walk and help themselves. A few nights earlier I was the poorliest person in the hospital and now I was in a strange place and I don't feel they knew how much care I really needed. A week and a half later on that ward I'd been complaining of difficulty breathing. Id been tellingthem for hours but They didnt seem too fussed until I actually couldn't breathe. Apparently I had pulmonary oedema and my lungs were full of fluid. After a terrifying experience i was finally knocked out, tube down throat and rushed back to ICU to have 10 litres of fluid filtered off my body. I don't feel they were prepared or equipped for me on that ward for the basic care or the life saving.
i think in any situation its hard to be taken out of i.c.u. but unfortunately for us we feel poorly and there was always someone at the end of your bed and then suddenly you feel alone and scared. Most hospials are understaffed but they still do a brilliant job. thats where i think volunteers come in to it even if we could go to hospitals just to listen and talk to the patients that feel vulenrable, hope this eventually happens, Going to the conference on wednesday and these problems might be addressed, and keep in touch x
I voted that they were not prepared for me. They thought I had just been admitted from home not that I had been in an induced coma for a month & been in ICU its like another world to them. We had 2 nurses to a ward who were rushed off their feet where as in ICU you had 2 to a bed.
I was more or less left alone. I was left on a bed where the matress was not plugged in so lay on the metal, which was painful. I went from complete care to no care. I even started my period but was told they had nothing for me. I was sent home within 24hrs ?
I hit the wrong answer. Hit green when meant red. Sorry, tried to change it, but can't unfortunately.
My hospital on the ward were mostly prepared for the care of me as in Zimmer frame, wheelchair, taking me for a bath, physio taking me for 2 min walk in corridor when finally got my walking stick. Though they weren't prepared for the fact I was extremely weak and did have to learn to walk, talk, write, use hands again, couldn't shower myself proper it was damned dangerous for me, first time they helped me onto a chair in shower room put my Zimmer frame out of reach against a walk. Did manage to get my gown off as was still in one of there's as my mum hadn't brought me in anything. Even though she visited, she was just clueless about what to do for somebody in hospital and what they need, even though she has been an inpatient herself. So then I showered or rather sat on chair under water with a tiny bottle of shampoo from them and a face cloth, but I couldn't then move from that seat under the shower, floor was obviously wet very slippery, and dangerous for me not being able to stand or walk unaided, luckily I managed to grab at my towel with my uncoordinated arm/hand and finally got hold of it though it did end up soaking wet as dragged all through the shower water draining away, and managed to cover my bits awkwardly before having to pull the emergency cord. It was a male nurse who came and piped his head around the door, but he was thankfully very discreet and went and got female nurses to help me. They had to get me dressed and everything, and wheel me back to the ward as my energy was completely gone. They carried my zimmerframe back also. The nurses had had to do everything for me, drying me, clothing me again, drying my hair. Which they left partly wet and not brushed, I looked like a wild woman, I didn't even have a hair brush of my own. Had nothing. They would leave me having slumped forwards flat on my face on my bed or hanging off it as I'd fall forwards or slipped off, they kept putting the safety rails down and moving my zimmerframe out of my reach away from my bed. Which meant the person in the next bed very caringly so became my career because nurses didn't do a proper job keeping a check on me a person out of icu who wasn't fully able-bodied and was so extremely weak. More stuff happened. They were prepared with wheelchairs/Zimmer frames, but themselves prepared for having to physically lift, carry, help to stand, sit, eat, drink, to brush my teeth for me, they weren't prepared. And that day and others like it that followed they went into panic mode flapping, but also made fun of me a bit which wasn't necessary as not my fault and they are working in a hospital as nurses afterall! I told those ones to go or something like that, and two nice nurses stayed with me. Hate people who roll their eyes, huff and puff and snigger and make derogatory comments. Get another job I said if you don't like helping what your employment title requires you to do. Got told by one nurse on that ward to shut my face, and to f**k off because I was in unbearable pain and another time because she was force feeding an old woman who was screaming about it because she was frightened by that nurses aggressive behaviour towards her and lack of care. We all in that ward hated that nurse. She was a nurse not to care but to bully and get a feeling of power from. We all have her a piece of our minds, nurses are not supposed to tell that mentioned above to patients, or treat them roughly. Other patients were fearful of repercussions from her, I wasn't and reported her, telling who I reported her to that she wasn't to come anywhere near me again or set foot into our ward until she could treat us respectfully and with care she's supposed to provide. She was reprimanded, did stay away from me, and her behaviour changed completely.
On the ward they pcr tested me for Covid, I don’t know what’s the point when I had covid pneumonia in icu and it came back positive obviously. After that middle of the night they moved my bed to an isolation room to have me separated. They forgot to plug in my bed so I slept on the frame/pipes not pressurised mattress. The doctor did not see me for 10days. I felt like a prisoner I wanted have myself discharged. FU nhs FU nurses. I had 2x uti infection and once E. coli infection can’t be very clean in the hospital.
I had no covid follow up, they forgot about me no physio. Some mess up between the trusts and counties. XXI. Century come on
I was admitted to the ICU at Royal Brisbane Hospital, with severe pneumonia, necessitating intubation/medical coma/ventilator for 15 days. Once extubated, I had very caring nurses who helped me recover from the experience as well as the resulting delirium. I had a very smooth transition from the ICU to the respiratory ward, where I spent another 4 weeks. The health system in Australia is a good one, and the nursing care I received was wonderful. I was wheeled down to the ward in a wheelchair, and the wards-man was very comforting as was the nurse who came with me. My bed was ready, and the nurses on duty introduced themselves. I would come to know them well, made easier because I’m a very outgoing, interested in others kind of person. Many of the nurses were from other countries - they had been in Australia doing training and got trapped when COVID hit. I really enjoyed interacting with them - their demeanour helped my recovery. I then had rehab at another specialist hospital close by. So all in all a good experience.
I was placed in a general ward literally not long after I had my tracheostomy out, still had trouble swallowing and used to choke a lot, when I first began to eat, sometimes they would close my door! Remember still having drip etc and struggled to get to bathroom, as had to learn to walk again and my body struggled, sometimes used bed pans but remember having to wait over 15 minutes to get seen, had to get husband and mum to ring ward, just so they come in and see me… wasn’t ready for main ward!
