Working Conditions

Last weekend was my 12hr work weekend. Which means I worked 7am-7pm on Fri, Sat, and Sun. The long work hours make me dream of my patients and the sounds of work when I'm home. Sunday evening at work I was involved in an incident that I'd rather forget, but none the less awoke and thought about. It goes like this:


I was called into a room by a fellow RN to help re-position a patient in bed. When I walked in, the patient's husband and daughter were already boosting this elderly patient up in the bed. The patient's husband was very upset and pushing and pulling his wife forcibly, stating "See! I can do it! Who do you think does it at home?!" He was very rough with the patient and she looked at me and said "This is how he gets!" Then she was pleading with him to stop. The other RN and myself explained that we could assist her in bed and reposition her, that we were glad to let him rest. The daughter stood outside of the room during the whole interchange. Then the husband was yelling that he would just leave since "nobody needed his help." He started to gather his things, then stood at the foot of the bed and watched as the other nurse and I positioned the patient and applied cream to her bed sores (which she came to the hospital with from home). The husband grew livid. He grabbed the cream from my co-worker, and said "You don't even know where her wounds are!! I'll show you! You don't even know what you're doing!" At this point I asked him to leave the room. When he didn't I turned to tell the secretary to call securty, and the husband continued to yell at and berate my coworker. Somewhere in the midst of the yelling the husband called my coworker "boy." It was extremely uncomfortable to watch the exchange unfolding before me eyes. My coworker had been pushed to the edge and this patient's family member was way out of line.
Did I mention that my coworker is from Nigeria, male, and in very good physical shape? I don't know if these factors preempted this abuse or not. I have a feeling they did. My adrenaline was pumping and it seemed to take forever for security to come to our aid. Soon, the situation died down. But I couldn't believe the tirade of verbal abuse that I had just witnessed. Not only to the vulnerable patient lying in the bed, but to my coworker who was caring for this vulnerable patient. Yikes!
It took me a while to calm down, and my coworker too. I felt so bad that he had to suffer from such abuse and disrespect. How do you cope with that? It really does nothing for your ambition to care for people when you are faced with such disrespect.
Anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I tell the story the hairs stand up on my arms every time. I glad that security was notified, but I really hope that this man understood that we do not tolerate verbal abuse and threatening behavior; and that we were all there to provide that patient good care, no matter gender, race or country of origin! AHHHhhhhh! It still makes me mad!