This email was sent by a family member who wishes to remain anonymous. It needs no further introduction.
A while back, staff were called into a meeting, where staff were told that invalid/high care patients are to only have a maximum of 3 incontinence pad changes in a 24 hour period.
The pads are locked away other than the allocated amounts so the staff cannot change a pad when required if the daily limit has been reached.
To dedicated nurses, this is a failure of duty of care, that they have no say in.... Patients are forced to wear the wet pads back to front to maintain absorbancy.
One elderly male patient had requested a new pad from the staff after showering, he told them he had not had a clean pad for 3 days and was forced to turn them back to front and inside out during the 3 days prior.
The nurse was forced to "borrow" one from another patients daily allowance, which in turn left that patient without.
The nurse urged the patient to report this to the facility manager, but unsure of the outcome as the three a day rule was reinforced recently. Some patients have suffered rashes and scalding due to this.
One patient had not had a change in the time between two staff length shifts - - - so as well as the restrictions on the allocated amount of pads, there are also nurses who are ignoring wet patients.
I find this totally unacceptable treatment of our valued elderly citizens.
If parents limited their childrens nappies to 3 a day the child would probably be removed from their care.
How can staff complain about these types of work practices when they have been explicitly directed to perform their duties with such specific instruction?
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