Muppet Nurse

[kandr]

Nurse switched off patient's life support by mistake | Society | The Guardian

Where do they get these people? How hard is it?? "Whatever you do don't turn this machine as it keeps the patient alive". Maybe the machine should have some sort of built in check though, "Are you sure you want to kill this patient? Ok, Cancel.

[EternalOptimist]

Nurse switched off patient's life support by mistake | Society | The Guardian

Where do they get these people? How hard is it?? "Whatever you do don't turn this machine as it keeps the patient alive". Maybe the machine should have some sort of built in check though, "Are you sure you want to kill this patient? Ok, Cancel.

Aye Mrs EO is a nurse in charge of a couple of teams of carers, she was incandescant when she read about this. It seems that they have to use ordinary plugs and sockets because the ventilators get moved around so much, and the switch on the machine itself has a silent alarm, you dont want to give the patient a heart attack by setting off a siren.

She is in charge of training and without a doubt , foreign cultures play a big part in these types of mistakes. Some people just dont relate what they learn in a training room, to a real life situation. She cant explain it, and when it manifests itself, its often too late. She's lost a few kids this way, has the missus.

People unplugging the ventilator to hoover up, charge their ipod, plug the radio in,
its hearbreaking

[kandr]

Aye Mrs EO is a nurse in charge of a couple of teams of carers, she was incandescant when she read about this. It seems that they have to use ordinary plugs and sockets because the ventilators get moved around so much, and the switch on the machine itself has a silent alarm, you dont want to give the patient a heart attack by setting off a siren.

She is in charge of training and without a doubt , foreign cultures play a big part in these types of mistakes. Some people just dont relate what they learn in a training room, to a real life situation. She cant explain it, and when it manifests itself, its often too late. She's lost a few kids this way, has the missus.

People unplugging the ventilator to hoover up, charge their ipod, plug the radio in,
its hearbreaking

Thats shocking, is that true? Cant they fit batteries to these things that allow them to operate for an hour or two in that event, what happens if theres a power failure? No this isn't right, im getting on Buba.

[Mich the Tester]

People unplugging the ventilator to hoover up, charge their ipod, plug the radio in,
its hearbreaking

All sounds to me like cost savings by cutting corners. Don't actually check if the nurse is qualified; just abdicate responsibility to an agency and a purchasing department.

Lady Tester personally checks the qualifications of anyone she hires, either through an agency or directly; she knows you just cannot cut corners, but you can't rely on some personel intermediary (agent) or purchasing clerk with no medical training to do the job properly. Thing is, she does that for 5 or 6 nurses per week, which is do-able; if you're hiring hundreds each week, it's more difficult, but I'd say it's a task for ward sisters to do the checking (of course, they need the time to do that).

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I was a little surprised the thing didn't have a UPS of some kind - although it seems she selected death mode on the front panel (WTF - why fart around with it at all?).

The biggest tragedy to me is that the bloke clearly knew he was surrounded by muppets or we'd never have seen the footage. Now he's brain damaged from an entirely preventable and predictable cause that he identified for himself but was powerless to prevent.

[EternalOptimist]

Cant they fit batteries to these things that allow them to operate for an hour or two in that event, what happens if theres a power failure? No this isn't right, im getting on Buba.

power might be there, but its still possible to switch the thing off, which is what happened in this case.

[EternalOptimist]

I was a little surprised the thing didn't have a UPS of some kind - although it seems she selected death mode on the front panel (WTF - why fart around with it at all?).

The biggest tragedy to me is that the bloke clearly knew he was surrounded by muppets or we'd never have seen the footage. Now he's brain damaged from an entirely preventable and predictable cause that he identified for himself but was powerless to prevent.

why fart around with it ?

to change a filter , i believe. which has to be done regularly.

[Mich the Tester]

why fart around with it ?

to change a filter , i believe. which has to be done regularly.

Are those life support systems really so primitive you have to switch them off to change a filter?

Surely it's not too hard to build a double filter system whereby one filter is always bypassed thereby leaving the other filter free for replacement?

[Alf W]

Let's hope they transfer the nurse to Thatcher's ward.

[EternalOptimist]

Are those life support systems really so primitive you have to switch them off to change a filter?

Surely it's not too hard to build a double filter system whereby one filter is always bypassed thereby leaving the other filter free for replacement?

absolutely not. she switched it off and she should not have done.

a bit like sas switching off his server before he makes his backup