Hospital Emergency

While on my neurology I treated a patient who had Parkinson’s disease but still had fairly high level balance and wanted to get back to a high level of fitness (after suffering an infection resulting in a lengthy hospital admission). It was my first actual day of treating patients by myself and only my second day at this particular hospital.

My Parkinsons patient (Mark*) was excited to perform some challenging balance and cardiovascular exercises. I was excited as well because I was able to apply all those Parkinsons techniques to see if they really did work. So I took Mark to the physio gym for a work out. About half way through the treatment session Mark reported that he was starting to feel sick, I wasn’t sure if he meant he was starting to feel tired or actually going to be sick. Then I heard Mark dry reaching and I knew. I attempted to find Mark a sick bag, but could not find one. Mark was still standing so I rushed him over to a seat and as soon as Mark sat down he was sick in his lap. I was quite flustered and could not find any sick bags so I pushed the nurse assist button on the wall in the hope that a nurse would come in and help Mark. It took roughly 10 seconds for 5 nurses and my supervisor to come rushing in screaming “someone pushed the button”. I replied “yes, Mark was sick. Can you help him?” The nurses let out a sigh and then proceeded to help clean Mark up. I later found out that the nurse assist button and the code blue or emergency button sound the same alarm, and thus the source of confusion.

I received a bit of teasing from some of the nurses. I had a talk to my supervisor regarding what I should have done, she said that I had done the right thing and that really was my only option considering there were no sick bags in the physio gym. She said that I had made a mature choice, because it would have been unwise to leave the patient alone to seek help.

I considered this later and realised that even though I had receiving a bit of teasing from the nurses I had done the right thing and needed assistance, it would have been irresponsible to think that I could handle that situation on my own. I also considered why they had the same alarm for nurse assist and emergency, I discussed this with my supervisor and she agreed that it was quite unsafe and it was due to changed with renovations to the hospital. I have learned from this situation that although we are taught to be largely independent it still is important to identify when we are out of our depth and need assistance. If put in the same position again I would make sure I had done everything I could to handle the situation myself (ie sick bags, sitting the patient down) but I would not hesitate to use the nurse assist button again. Sick bags are now kept in the physio gym for such situations.

*Fictitious names used