Hospital Behavior

When you have a loved one in the hospital, please think of these things.

1. If you have a large family, name 1 person as the contact. There are privacy laws that do not allow anyone at the hospital to give out any information without written consent. You will save time, confusion and stress if there is only one person to contact. It will also be incredibly helpful to the hospital staff to only work with one primary person. You will also allow more time for staff to be with your loved one instead of on the phone with you and 16 others, all asking the same questions.

2. When I say loved one, I mean immediate family member. Unfortunately, you just don't count if you aren't related, in the world of health care.

3. Visitation hours are set for a reason. For the rest of the patient, you (you are not helpful if you are tired and cranky) and an opportunity for the staff to take care of things that are not as easy to do with an audience (like a bath or enema, do you really want to see that?).

4. Be informed. Don't be afraid to ask questions, in face, keep a list handy for when you see the doctors. But do remember that they went to school for a very long time to know what they know and do what they do. You can be informed and involved and not be irritating and high maintenence. Irritating is bad, very, very bad. Don't irrate your caregivers. They will still take care of you but will no longer like you.

5. Give the staff some love, particularly the RNs. They do all the grunt work and get to know you and your patient. Don't be afraid to encourage and thank them.

6. Be patient, staff wants to give the best care possible to each patient, but remember that there are many patients in the hospital (not to mention that the staff also has to eat and go to the RR, just like you).

7. I had another good one, but have drawn a blank. I think it's all the difficult families and bad smells.