Bed sore a criminal nursing neglicienceBy writing this article I am responding to my professional conscience.
Despite various and numerous approaches to reach the target groups I have not been able to activate or receive any response or echo.
Perhaps someone will stumble over this article and her/his nursing conscience gets activated.
Decubitus/Bedsore - a crime in the nursing profession!
Yes I am standing by this. Bedsore or decubitus as it is called in the professional language is a criminal negligence in the nursing process.
No matter how often it occurs in our hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation centers, or also in the private settings in patients’ homes it does not make it a non-preventable, painful and horrifying condition. Bedsores are in general preventable provided one understands the processes and conditions that contribute to its development.
In the years of my profession as a nurse the most striking observation I made is the total apathy and ‘tidak apa’ (could not be bothered) attitude of the nursing profession. This unfortunately is being accepted by the medical profession which does seemingly have equally little understanding of this problem. Perhaps understandably, the prevention of bedsore is mainly a nursing issue.
Why is it that so many patients irrespective of the place of care are afflicted with single or multiple bedsores? The maximum spots of skin abrasions and lacerations we ever come across were counted as 15 spots. The hospital staff claimed that this was due to the complexity of her illness. However this was countered as the sores receded and healed within weeks of proper skin care and proper sore management.
With the necessary cooperation of the family we have been managing to heal all bedsores we were given the responsibility of management.
When the family members inquired how the bedsores developed they were told by the hospital nurses that it was ‘BIASA’ (usual state) as the patient was elderly and bed-ridden. What they did not tell the families was that they did not even know that bedsores were developing on the patient.
It is a common practice that the body care of many patients is taken care of by relatives or maids. Apparently with the noble intention of the Health Ministry that the family learn how to manage the patient once he is discharged home. However the teaching aspect by the nurses in the ward is nil. So how is the family or the maid able to detect early signs of bedsore development or prevention when there is no coaching? But rather brushed off as menial work on the patient?! How does a nurse know that the patient is at risk to develop bedsore if she does not even know the contributory factors that lead to the development of bedsores. In one case the nurse was informed of an abrasion at the buttock. The nurse did not even inspect the buttock but just passed zinc oxide cream to the maid to apply.
Do our nurses understand:
proper skin care?
pressure and counter pressure?
interference of gas-exchange (diffusion-interference)?
metabolism in cells?
damage to cell-walls?
nutritional requirements?
impaired mobility?
spinal cord injury?
para/hemi/tetraplegia (quardraplegia)?
coma?
friction/rubbing?
unsanitary conditions?
sedation?
anaemia?
exicosis (dehydration)?
moisture of the skin?
And many other aspects that contribute to the prevention or development of bedsore?
I am willing to challenge any of our nurses currently taking care of patients particularly of geriatric patients of the knowledge and skills in the prevention of bedsores.
In most hospitals that I visited the patients were placed on incorrect mattresses, diapers were changed according to schedule, not as to the need of the patients, knowledge of skin care was close to nil, nutrition seemed to be unimportant and much more.
Ironically my offer to provide seminars on the issue of bedsores to approximately 15 hospitals and nursing schools in the Klang Valley did not get even an enquiry response.
Perhaps only legally criminalizing of the negligence of nurses responsible for a patients’ development of bedsores would wake up the nursing fraternity and the medical sector.
It’s time that we get rid of the lackadaisical attitude of bedsores are ‘BIASA’!
Further information about managing of bedsore, MOBILE NURSING/MOBILE DOCTOR contact:
Home Nursing Providers 00603 78777202 or
1 comment:
I guess more must be done to prevent bedsore to develope. Its a pitty to see some of the elderly people suffer from massive bedsore in our hospitals and nurrsing homes
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