Am i in the right?

[Inka]

Good you’re home 🙂 Take it easy and look after yourself.

 

[Sally71]

My biggest concern when I was admitted to hospital for 8 days about 6 years ago for something not related to my diabetes was when they came to do a BG check in the afternoon and it read 2.6 and she just walked away and said she would be back in a few hours. I was like “excuse me are you going to treat my hypo?”, she replied “what do you mean ?”. I was gob smacked that she was walking away and thought it was normal.

I ended up asking to speak to the nurse in charge, as well as telling her what she needed to do to help me.

That reminds me too - on the same hospital visit, whilst waiting for a scan to confirm my daughter's diagnosis, she started to go low. As she had suspected appendicitis she was already nil by mouth, because of the high chance of her having to be operated on within a few hours. So I didn’t dare give her any glucose! I found a nurse and told her, and she said she'd be back in a moment, and then disappeared! I could see my daughter fading before my eyes, nobody came back so I had to hastily go on a search, and eventually found the doctor and a load of nurses in a side room all having a conflab about how to deal with it. I had to ask if someone would mind coming to help my daughter as she was going to go unconscious in a minute if nobody did anything and as she was nil by mouth I didn’t dare do it myself. So then finally a nurse did come and squirt some glucose into her drip.

I get that general ward staff can’t possibly know everything about every possible medical condition, but would it not be a good idea, when faced with someone who has a long term medical condition (which may or may not be anything to do with the reason they are in hospital), to talk to the person concerned about how they want the condition to be managed while they are in hospital?! Assuming of course that they aren’t unconscious or incapable of looking after themselves. It isn’t rocket science!

@brisr949 glad you are home now and all ok 🙂

 

[trophywench]

@brisr949 - thank the Lord for that Adam!

 

[JSWells]

Thanks for all the great replies, im home now, managed to get discharged this morning so home now and very glad for it. Feel so much better being back in control of my meds.
Adam.

Hi Adam,

Hospital pharmacist here! Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with your visit. Often the rationale behind nursing staff managing and administering medicines comes from a place of trying to support hospital care and policy, however this isn't always appropriate for people who really are the experts in managing their own medicines. Additionally, there may be a reason for withholding insulin that hasn't been disclosed (this isn't good practice, but sometimes communication breakdown does happen!).

My advice would be on your next visit (if you have one!) to discuss whether the hospital has a self-administration policy and explain your previous experience with raised blood glucose and eventually ketones due to missing administration based on your previous insulin use. You can always ask to speak to a ward pharmacist too for some additional advice on self-administration while at most hospitals.

Hope you're feeling better now 🙂
Josh

 

[SB2015]

Glad you are at home Adam

It will be worth contacting your diabetes team to discuss what happened, and to develop a plan for next time. There should be a protocol that the wards are following for managing people with diabetes. I have a copy of the one for our local hospital just in case.

Take care