Went to a nursing home, one of the better ones for a change, to see a lady in her eighties who was experiencing breathing problems. Once we were shown to her room it was easy to hear her chest as the noise was reverberating down the corridor!
She was hot and had a productive cough with plenty of green sputum saved in bowls and tissue by the nursing staff to show us. Thanks! I think it was pretty safe to say that she had a chest infection. We put her on some oxygen and placed her on the monitor and did some base line obs…resps, pulse, ECG, BP, O2 sats, GCS, BM etc.
She was struggling to breath so we replaced the oxygen mask with a nebuliser and administered Salbutamol. Within minutes her breathing settled down and she could talk with us although still not in full sentences. The nursing home sister on night duty gave us copies of the patients notes and list of medications as we carefully placed her on our carry chair and took her out to the vehicle.
Once we had settled the patient onto our stretcher she piped up …”wheres me teef?”… and before we could answer …”and wheres me readers?”. I jumped off the vehicle and caught the sister before she went back into the home and asked about the patients teeth and glasses. She turned round and asked one of the night staff to go to the patients room and fetch her teeth and her glasses. This took two or three goes as the member of staff was foreign and so his first tongue was not English.
And so we waited…and waited…and we waited a bit more. Eventually the member of staff came into view…with a tray…holding a cup of tea and a couple of empty glasses! The sister went purple…then red…then blue…then a sort of incandescent shade of pink! I thought her head was going to explode but she remained tight lipped and bit her tongue as she tried to formulate words to express her dismay. I quickly stepped in and using a combination of pointing to eyes and mouth and drawing pictures in the air I sent the member of staff back to fetch the patients false teeth and reading glasses.
Iwas really trying very hard not to piss myself laughing!
“teef!”
Went to a nursing home, one of the better ones for a change, to see a lady in her eighties who was experiencing breathing problems. Once we were shown to her room it was easy to hear her chest as the noise was reverberating down the corridor!
She was hot and had a productive cough with plenty of green sputum saved in bowls and tissue by the nursing staff to show us. Thanks! I think it was pretty safe to say that she had a chest infection. We put her on some oxygen and placed her on the monitor and did some base line obs…resps, pulse, ECG, BP, O2 sats, GCS, BM etc.
She was struggling to breath so we replaced the oxygen mask with a nebuliser and administered Salbutamol. Within minutes her breathing settled down and she could talk with us although still not in full sentences. The nursing home sister on night duty gave us copies of the patients notes and list of medications as we carefully placed her on our carry chair and took her out to the vehicle.
Once we had settled the patient onto our stretcher she piped up …”wheres me teef?”… and before we could answer …”and wheres me readers?”. I jumped off the vehicle and caught the sister before she went back into the home and asked about the patients teeth and glasses. She turned round and asked one of the night staff to go to the patients room and fetch her teeth and her glasses. This took two or three goes as the member of staff was foreign and so his first tongue was not English.
And so we waited…and waited…and we waited a bit more. Eventually the member of staff came into view…with a tray…holding a cup of tea and a couple of empty glasses! The sister went purple…then red…then blue…then a sort of incandescent shade of pink! I thought her head was going to explode but she remained tight lipped and bit her tongue as she tried to formulate words to express her dismay. I quickly stepped in and using a combination of pointing to eyes and mouth and drawing pictures in the air I sent the member of staff back to fetch the patients false teeth and reading glasses.
Iwas really trying very hard not to piss myself laughing!