to Expect rules to be followed by nurses while my daughter is in hospital?

[Skmo1]

My 16yr old daughter got taken into hospital by ambulance this morning with severe stomach/abdominal pains. A&E, cannula in hand, pain relief (morphine through the cannula, then admission to ward and all very quickly! fantastic. As she is 16, shes in adult wards rather than children’s. She was very apprehensive about me not being able to stay over night with her plus she has anxiety, which brings on panic attacks about things like that! She phoned me at 8.30pm & told me she’d started feeling sore again & asked the nurse for a morphine top-up, (on docs request) nurse told her 5mins it would b with her. Nurse came back, alone & handed her a syringe filled with clear liquid & walked away! My daughter didn’t know what to do. It’s her first ever stay in hospital and also her first ever time having morphine. First time she has saw morphine was when she was down in A&E and the doctor put it straight into her cannula! She was a bit puzzled as to why SHE was GIVEN a syringe full of morphine, then left to her own devices. It’s very lucky she’s a bright girl & thought to ask before She whacked it through the cannula & it’s very very lucky she did ask as it was actually ORAL morphine, she was supposed to swallow it! So, shes got talking to a couple of women on the ward....as u do! One woman had blood and other bodily fluids all over her bed sheets from her admission on Fri. They havent been changed, at all. The same woman & another had violently vomited on Fri night and both their sick bowls are STILL sitting on their tables that go over the bed.....tonight (Sun).

So much for the hospital being vigilant in staying clean to Reduce the risk of patients catching superbugs like MRSA etc!! And also breaking controlled drug procedures completely to the point of negligence!

Am I being over the top???

Apologies OhtheRoses but I thought that Mums net was a place you could log into and discuss your worries about things as a Mother or am I mistaken?

Vinegarqueen

She has saw these things with her own eyes but never mind she must be mistaken then? Is that not someone saying “what she is saying and has seen cannot be right. She must be mistaken”

Sorry but that’s calling someone a liar in my book

I can well believe it, I've had to lie in awful sheets for over a day, and had a bowl of vomit ignored on the side for two days (and yes, it was just starting to disintegrate on the bottom so even harder to clean up hygienically). A few weeks ago i was in hospital and the nurse handed over painkillers to the person next to me (just admitted) taking their word a&e hadn't already given some. I had to point out to her that this was a dementia patient! It sounds like your DD is experiencing really poor care, speak to PALS!

At my Trust a 16 year old would be in the adult ward unless they require a carer with them which is easier to accommodate on the children's ward. If necessary carers are allowed to stay on the adult wards but this wouldn't apply to the average 16 year old

Making a mistake because you’re poorly and frightened, or because you’re young and believe what an older person is telling you, is totally different to being a deliberate liar though.
I don’t think anybody here is being unkind about your daughter, I hope she’s on the mend soon.

skmo of course you can discuss your worries. Advice is give too and if I were worried about my dd I'd be on the ward not on mnet.

I’m sorry your daughter is poorly. I think arguing with people on here will only serve to heighten your stress. I find it surprising that 16 year olds are on adult wards. I think that’s so young still and many do need a parent.

This would have been over the weekend, and numbers of staff on wards can be greatly reduced. Although some of the things observed may not be up to usual nurse standards, it may be what you get when wards are inadequately staffed.

It always surprises me that medical people assume that patients are as knowledgeable about drugs, process etc etc as they are themselves.

I certainly wouldn't have known what to do with the syringe she was given, and I am a lot older than 16!
Why would any nurse expect a 16 year old to understand what to do with it?

Talk to the ward manager, op. As in, I am worried rather than I am furious.

The oromorph incident is entirely separate from ward cleanliness and although what you describe sounds very poor there may be some mistakes in the telling if you haven’t actwitnessed all of it.

My own experience of a busy nhs surgical ward was that there was some appalling hygiene practice.

I hope she gets a diagnosis and treatment soon.

In my experience there's no obvious cut off for paediatric care, sometimes it depends on where there is spaced. It can also depend on speciality.

PALS - this is such poor care.

I was in A&E on a trolley with atrial fibrillation a few weeks ago from 8.45 am till 5 pm. During the whole of that time no-one offered me food or drink and I had had neither since the night before. The basics are going missing.

Hope your DD will be well soon.

where I work Oromorph ceased to be classed a as controlled drug some years ago. It is kept in the general drug trolley and is patients medication lockers by the bed. It can be administered by one nurse and does not mean to be double signed or even written in a book.

16-18 is a tricky age in health care settings. At 16 you are almost certainly going to be consenting to your own health care and there can be safeguarding issues with having this age group on paediatric wards.In my trust they are always admitted to adult wards (there is no adolescent ward) but visiting is much less restrictive. Over night stays are difficult to accommodate unless in a sideroom as other patients don't always want it and the physical space between beds is too small if there are drip machines etc. The poor infection control issues should be raised but it must be a terrible place if vomit bowls are really sitting around for days, surely the patient or visitors can ask for them to be removed.

From my experience I think although morphine is now a restricted drug not controlled- I can't see them handing it over like that.

They do though

I was in last year with the appendix and periodically they asked me to rate my pain. . Anything over 8/10 they gave morphine . It does come to you in thick syringe with plunger (I c all it that) and you put it in your mouth , plunge and swallow.
Don't worry OP, I am 53 and I had to ask what do I do as well .

I'm sorry but The vomit bowls would have split and leaked if they were full as they're made from cardboard

Your daughter should have been given oramorph in a purple oral syringe and really the nurse should have stayed to watch her take it. I can't believe she contemplated putting down the cannula!

can't believe she contemplated putting down the cannula
Why not? Her previous dose of morphine was administered that way so it’s not a crazy assumption for her to make.

gamer - because surely no-one would think about injecting themselves through a cannula ?

If I was a 16 year old, had no experience of administering drugs, had previously had a syringe of something put down a cannula and then was handed another syringe of something, I would definitely be unsure!

Other posters have said the morphine could make her confused and hallucinate, so it's really not hard to imagine a confused teenager considering putting a syringe in a cannula!

Well firstly she's not been asked to put anything down the cannula, secondly it should have been in a purple syringe so a totally different colour to the other times someone else has put something in the cannula. And lastly because I don't think I'd ever consider it my job (and I'm a nurse) to administer IV medications to myself as there is no flush given to me with the medication and no anti sickness and you generally stop giving morphine when the patient starts to feel like it's taken effect so you give it slowly and stop when they feel either sick or the pain has gone how would a patient be able to take the syringe out of the cannula if they became incapacitated by the drug?
Maybe it's just me but I'd never do self IV administered drugs in hospital

Regardless as to whether Oramorph is calssed as a controlled drug in that particular Trust, it could be argued that the incident was a near miss for a Never Event for wrong route administration if the the patient considered administration through the cannula?

OhtheRoses

Thanks for your kind words. I am actually on the ward now and reading the advice I’m being given on here before I jump down anyone’s throat for the wrong thing or with the wrong information. My first and foremost priorities above anything else are my 2 children and am obviously concerned about practises and protocol not being carried out properly. I knew there would be posters that would work in this environment so firstly, before I jump into the unknown (with both my broken feet) 🦶 🦶 😂 I was trying to find out what other people thought of the situation.

Again, thank you for taking the time to get involved and posting. I really appreciate it 👍🏻🤗

@Lostandinsane absolutely! The staff need to be made aware of this (can't remember if it was a nurse who told ops daughter to take it by mouth)

I'm not saying it's not piss poor care by the nurses to make sure that a 16 year old in pain and on a ward with adults understands fully how to take the medication- I'm just saying that Id never contemplated a patient of mine thinking that they could take an oral drug by IV because it's in a syringe and one of a different colour to that used previously for any IV drugs. But then I'd never leave them to take it alone as I can't sign they've taken it until I've seen them do it so I wait until they've taken the drug before I take the syringe and dispose of it.

So sorry if anyone thinks I’ve been jumping on the defensive. It’s a natural reaction when your kids are involved. I’m really worried about her so again apologies being sent 😐 💐 🤗

Ultrasound this afternoon so fingers crossed she could be bak in her rightful place tonight (her own bed) with mum fussing around her 😆

@Lostandinsane

The nurse should of explained how to take it to OP's DD and watched her take it, but it's probably not a near miss because there are different syringes for oral and IV use; a oral syringe will not physically connect to a cannula, so it's meant to remove the risk of giving something that's meant to be taken orally by IV accidentally. Though saying that, I mentioned above that a nurse at my trust did actually give Oramorph to a patient through their cannula recently, they had incorrectly drawn it up in a IV syringe.

Hope you manage to speak to someone OP.