Hey guys, so just this week alone i had two instances of elderly abuse:
1. A few days ago, I had a patient who was brought in by ambulance with arm pain. The patient had her arm in a ace wrap and the bone was obviously fracture (you can see it sticking out). A few minutes after ems brought her, her daughter came in. After screaming at the mother for calling ems, and screaming at us, the daughter stated that she refuses for her mother to be treated in our facility. She made a whole commotion and refused anyone (me as the nurse, or the doctor) to even go near her mother and refused her mother answering any questions. When everyone left for a minute I heard the daughter tell her mother -don't you dare tell them about the fall...
2. Yesterday I had a elderly patient who was brought into the emergency department by her son for a headache. After treating the patient, the patient was ready to be discharged. I told the patient and the son that we are going to discharge the patient. The son then went into a full rage, and said that we are responsible for finding an aide to take care of his mother and that he refuses to take her back (the patient was living by her son's house-who was her only child). The son screamed that he was going to call 911 on us if we do not find a new place for his mom to live.
After calling a social worker, we explained to the son that we are an emergency room- we can give you referrals to a nursing home or agency but at the end of the day he is responsible for the care of his mother. To make a long story short- he just walked out of the hospital and said hes not coming back.
What that means for us, is that we have to admit the patient into our hospital, and care for her until either he comes back or a different facility takes her (which shes not a candidate for a nursing home). This patient can live with us her whole life if no one comes to pick her up and no other facility will take her.
This patient was not even so old (was in her 60's), she was fully alert and understood everything going on. The poor patient was just sitting there watching her son screaming that he has no time for his mother and doesn't want to take care of her anymore.
Elder abuse is a real thing that is unfortunately rising. We need to put an end to it.
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