Dear Nurse Marge,
I work in a LTC facility. One of our patients was (once upon a time) a nurse, and she must have been a good one! She’s ready and eager to help — more than once, we’ve found her bringing blankets to or pouring water for other patients.
Which is great, until it comes time to provide more ‘involved’ care. We’ve had to stop her from ‘assisting’ other patients, up to and including giving baths. She’s confronted staff about medication before, and wouldn’t you know it, sometimes she’s right? But obviously we can’t let her keep on providing care: how do we handle this without hurting her feelings?
Signed,
Wish I Had A Chance to Work With Her Back In The Day
Dear Wish,
Tell her it’s all administration’s fault. She’ll believe it in an instant. Everything else in her experience will have taught her to believe this!
That being said, it’s hard to stop a good nurse. So she’ll likely keep on keeping on. It might be better to work with her than against her: if you ask her to help with certain tasks, that might occupy her and keep her from providing more hands on care.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
Good Luck!
Nurse Marge
