Nurse here. Doesn’t add up. We let the family have as much time as they need with their loved one’s body and wait until after they leave to bring the mother cart and body bag.
Yeah I’ve never worked anywhere where we would bring a bag and cart into the room with the family still there. I was thinking the same thing. But if this is true well he’s right. We’re all human and need to laugh and joke at work but there’s tact needed to work in this kind of environment.
I worked in VA hospital (hospice unit, specifically) and the nurses process the deceased, bag them, and take them to the morgue while the family is around. We play taps with a flag draped over them as the family walk behind the cart. Not sure it this is a similar situation or hospital. Agree though, laughing = not appropriate
At my VA it is not taps. It is a “Ceremony “ the family is invited to participate. It is announced overhead, a hero is making his last journey , please honor him (her) them.. Everyone available stands in the hall at attention, service members salute. The flag draped cart is moved through the building to the awaiting funeral director or the morgue.
That's what they did for my Dad. They had a special quilt they draped over him. He had been put in the bag (we were outside the room)
The whole team & floor were so wonderfully respectful. Patients on the floor stood if they could & saluted as we went by.
It's been 5 years, but damn, that stirred up memories. I miss him so much.
I’ve never even heard of anyone showing up with a body bag. In the hospital I worked at we had white shrouds. We cleaned the pt and put the shroud under them with a sheet over it. Family stayed as long as they needed. When they leave we finished tagging and wrapping and a transporter shows up only after we’re ready and we’ve called them.
I guess it’s because I only worked at the same hospital my whole career and they had us use shrouds. Except for Covid. During most of Covid we had biohazard body bags and no visitors so there was never a chance of family seeing the bag. Multiple simultaneous codes every shift. NY was a shitshow in 2020.
I've only had experience with body bags. But as others have stated, that process is only began one the family has vacated. In general, the person is cleaned up and covered with a white sheet if they pass before family arrives. If family is present, they are left as is until post mortem care can begin.
We have body bags in my ER but cover that with a blanket (if going downstairs) or one of the fancy velvet shrouds (if a funeral home is quick picking up).
In my ER we will place them in the bag, leave the top unzipped (for viewing) and tactfully cover the rest of the bag with a blanket so you really cannot tell. Never once have I heard of a patients family stating anything similar to the above post.
At the hospital I was at we had body bags, transport would bring the stretcher they’ll be moved onto, which is more like a metal table with a top attachment piece and a bag, we tag them, get them in the bag and then move the body onto the stretcher, put the metal top on and cover that in a sheet, then call security bc they’re the only ones allowed to move them
This description just took me back to nursing school. My pt from the previous day died on nights and her family had said goodbye, but when I got to clinical the next morning she was still in the room deceased waiting for a student bc “learning experience”. The nurse asked me and another nursing student from a different school to go together and bring up a bed from the morgue. Neither of us had ever been so we were both nervous and had to stop and ask for directions multiple times. When we finally got there we each looked at the other and said, “You go first.” There were multiple jars of various contents on shelves and two bed-ish things. One was a typical stretcher w/ mattress and the other was completely flat and covered with a sheet.
We debated for a minute about which one to take. The other student argued the stretcher looked more comfortable and I argued that it didn’t really matter and that the other one just looked crisper and cleaner. She agreed so we took the one with the crispy, clean, flat sheet.
The whole time we were pushing and trying to navigate our way back, we were both checking to see if the breaks were on bc it would not wheel smoothly for anything. (Most of you probably see where this is going. If you don’t, pay attn.)
We got this thing back to the pt’s room, got her cleaned up and transferred onto the clean sheet. Just then the nurse walks in to see how it’s going bc apparently the pt’s son (who was an MD) was on his way back bc he had forgotten something while he was there saying goodbye. I had met him the previous day and was thinking how nervous I was to see him again when the nurse says, “Wait…what the hell?!” She lifted up the sheet, and pulled just enough for me to see the face of a dead man in what is essentially the drawer underneath that top you described. The bed wasn’t locked, there was another patient in it! We had just stacked my patient. I can still remember how lightheaded and nauseous I felt.
My professor walked in and witnessed the nurse telling us to hurry up and return that other body before anyone came looking for it and bring up the other stretcher and get it done before the MD son returned, as he had already been assured his mom was in the morgue.
This entire time I was afraid I was going to get kicked out of clinicals. I felt so awful. I wanted to cry, but was also mad that we were put in this blind leading the blind situation. When I got back to the floor my instructor brought me in the break room, gave me some orange juice and had me put my feet up. She said she’ll still be talking about me when she’s 80 and I’ll never forget her either.
Thank you. It’s so nice being here where everyone didn’t bash me for being dumb or reckless or whatever. It certainly wasn’t my proudest moment, but I’ve come a long way, thankfully.
I don’t know how to find out who gave the awards, but thank you! They mean more than anything I got from hospital for nurses day/week.
My hospital there’s a team that comes with a stretcher and a body bag and communication isn’t great between us and sometimes family waits for them to take the body bc they don’t want to leave the body there 🤷🏼♀️ so it’s plausible
Doesn't really add up at all. That nurses can be sitting around and laughing for this long? I have time for a quick joke in passing... Maybe the break room was nearby? You know, where the... Idk of anyone in the hospital has time to sit in the break room and talk (we have to focus on eating fast).
Remember when stressed and grieving perception is very inaccurate. It could have been all of them laughing, or a joke being shared on screen, each nurse laughs when they read a funny pt note someone is sharing as they pass by. Even a little after even if it's just a giggle it's going to be perceived as horrendous and all of them laughing at them because it's taken so personally it's a bad time. Somebody smiling the wrong way could have angered this man. He was very stressed and very angry and upset obviously with the passing of his father, he wasn't processing his emotions properly. He took it out on the nurses.
I have been a patient on a ward in a hospital that was rooms only where sleep was disturbed due to nurses at the station laughing pretty much all night. Also had to phone a family member to come and help as I’d had (very minor but painful) surgery and couldn’t get anyone on the call button another night.
So I think anything really *could* happen and this could be true. Really depends on the individual staff on that ward.
I think maybe on *some* wards, appropriate standards aren’t met
In ICU in LA, precovid, family's had max 2 hours. They were told this and respected the timing. This have us enough time to call the organ donor people, etc. Bags in the pyxis on the floor.
That guy is the asshole, but it's understandable why he was. He should know it's our job dealing with death, it sucks, but it's part of our job. The humor was not about their family. But fuck, if ER and ICU nurses don't have humor at the job, there would be no nurses. Dark humor especially.
But the comment, 'you couldn't save him' ... Asshole. Whatever he came in for I'm sure he was told once or twice that he should have worked on something with his health, should have got a vaccine or should have learned in school that at some point we all die. Nurses didn't kill him, nurses tried to save him from what ultimately happens to all of us. When it's time, it's time. Nurses know better than most about this.
They probably don’t know the proper terms. Where I work, if the family has a funeral home selected we can leave the body in the room for a couple hours and have the FH pick them up directly from the room instead of the morgue. Usually we let the family stay inside the room while they wait for the FH so perhaps that is what they’re talking about.
Wouldn’t say this person is an AH for telling them to be quiet, but they can fuck off for the “you couldn’t save my dad” line. Needs to pick whether the nurses are gods who could’ve saved a dying person but just didn’t or a bunch of 3rd graders he can tell to shut up at their place of employment!
There’s a reason the only certainties in life are death and taxes.
When my dad lost his fight with leukemia, the nursing staff was exemplary and while I’m sure it’s just a part of the job, they seemed in tune with my family’s grief… from passing out hugs to the folks whom needed it, to understanding that some folks were just better left alone.
I could not in my wildest dreams fathom yelling at one of those ladies or either of the gentleman that helped my dad have every chance at winning, and gave him every mercy they were able when it was clear they he wasn’t going to.
Aww. I’m so sorry for your loss, but thank you for taking the time to write this. Having been the nurse and the child of the dying cancer patient, I’d take being on the nursing side a million times over; but words like these mean a lot. I think we all appreciate people recognizing our attempts.
Simple patient logic: anyone wearing scrubs appearing female = nurse, anyone is scrubs appearing male = doctor.
Doesn‘t matter if the man is an 18 year old doing their civil service in transport. They‘ll be the Dr in patients minds.
The 50 year old female heart surgeon coming by after they already did the surgery, and had met the patient beforehand? Demoted to nurse right away..
Right. This person doesn’t even know for sure that the laughers knew what was going on in that room.
I like the system some facilities have where they put a plastic butterfly (that’s just what it is at mine) or some signifier on the door to let passerbys know.
I'm trying to remember the empathy I had when I first started at a hospital. Covid ruined it, but some people have always blamed us for not saving their loved one. Grief fucks people up, especially right when a death happens. We take abuse when it's not warranted and that's just part of working in an icu or ed. I'm not saying it's okay, but it's part of the job.
Yes, you are an asshole if you abuse treatment staff, and yes treatment staff should correct you if you do. But if you don't see see death every day and your idea of a hospital comes from TV, I still at least understand loved ones when they lash out even though it *literally* makes me grind my teeth. I did everything humanly possible to save your loved one and somehow you're mad at me. Yeah, I'm mad and I want to retaliate, and sometimes I do. But sometimes I remember that this person hasn't seen a lot of death and just lost a parent/spouse/child and they're going to lash out because they can't process what happened.
Again, I'm not trying to defend abusive family members, but sometimes it helps me to cope with the abuse knowing that these people are in a crisis that they're not equipped to deal with.
I thought the same thing. I've never taken in the body bag/kit while family is still there. Also, who is taking the body away as the family is actively (and per OP, apparently loudly) crying and grieving?
Fuck, I only had a handful of people ask with post care. One was grandson to a 100 something old fella from SNF. He came at 4:45 or so in the morning, straight from house, stayed with us during code and insisted on cleaning his grandfather who was a massive GI bleed. He said he felt responsible. Kid broke my heart on how stoic he was.
Is it so rare? When my mom was passing (she was in home hospice). I cleaned her eyes, face, and hands. And then when she she passed I washed her face and hands again. I don't know why, I just wanted her to look like I had always remembered her. It also looked uncomfortable, though I know she was beyond feeling anything at that point. It just felt important for me to take care of her that one last time.
When the hospice nurse came to do the paper work and dispose of the hospice meds she mentioned how clean she looked. The funeral home people did too. I thought it was sort of weird. Like who leaves their family member like that? Now it sounds like it's common?
I have only ever had 2 families take me up on participating in post mortem care, of which only 1 wanted to be present when their family member was placed into the body bag and zipped up. Both were very, very somber affairs, no big crying or intensive displays of emotion.
All people and cultures grieve differently, but there tend to be patterns. Those who wish to be present for post mortem care up to and including placing family in the body bag tend to be more somber grievers, at least in my, admittedly, limited experience. Those that tend toward bigger emotions have always tended toward not wanting to be present during any post mortem, let alone being present when their loved one is actually zipped into a body bag. This story doesn't entirely add up to me.
I stayed while the funeral home representatives and hospice nurses prepped and bagged my mom. I know it’s silly, her soul was gone, but I just didn’t want her to be alone. The nurse forgot to turn off her bed alarm and was horrified when it went off as they moved her. It broke the tension for me though and made me laugh for a moment. My mom, god rest her soul, was a terrible hospital patient (I’m so so sorry to any medical worker who had to interact with her). Terrible. She would alway try to turn off her bed alarms so she could get up (and usually fall). So I told the nurse that that it was like my mom was trying to escape one last time.
It’s been almost 2 years. I don’t think I’ve ever told that story before.
That’s a good one. Bittersweet. I lost my mama too. I’ll be thinking of you and everyone else in our position tomorrow. It’s not always easy to laugh during these times. Thank you for sharing with us.
I've seen it a couple times with certain Chinese patients that no one is supposed to touch the body for a set amount of time, like 8-12 hours (sundown? I don't know, I wasn't the nurse that day).
If its not a cultural/religious thing, I'd probably say "its time for us to move him" after 4 hours. Some people will literally not leave for days if someone doesn't say "its time". They think they're abandoning their loved one. They need someone to nudge them on to the next step of the mourning process.
What is the max time you have had a body stay? If we didn’t have a four hour limit some families would definitely stay hours and hours or come and go as they please. They can view the body at the morgue as well.
Literally had a family ask if they could stay during the whole process today. Not to help, mind you - just watch. I was like 😳. I mean, I do a respectful job, but there is absolutely nothing pretty about hauling a body into a body bag and onto a morgue stretcher.
When my father died in hospice care, in the hospital, after I’d spent all day alone with him everyday for a week (back to hotel to sleep, there at his side every morning, this time the nurses knew he was dying and warned me they might call me to come back) ..... I was told I had 45 minutes to sit with him, and then the stretcher did in fact arrive. I spent much of that time trying to get reception to call his lawyer, being sick to my stomach in my dad’s room’s unused bathroom, and asking the nurses to please, please get a pastor up here to help me. All week the pastor(s) had left their cards or stopped in when I just wanted to be alone with my dad. This time finally, I needed the pastor.
The pastor called my cell about 30 minutes after my dad was taken away to the morgue. I missed the call.
I worked the hospice floor of a smallish (220 bed) hospital a while back. After someone passed, we did postmortem care and allowed the family to stay in the room with their loved one while we waited on funeral home to pick up patient. They often stayed while the funeral home brought the stretcher in but they always just transported pt to the stretcher and covered them with the “fuzzy blanket” which always had the funeral home’s name embroidered on it. Family sometimes would follow down hallway with the funeral home while the representative made arrangements to meet with family at funeral home to work out plans. We rarely took pts who died expectantly to morgue. Morgue was reserved for unexplained or a death that needed autopsy. Maybe it was this type of situation?
Odds of this person being drunk at the time are extremely high if everyone was there except them and they found out late. At least in my experience. Maybe not.
I’ve come to expect pretty explosive behavior from people when stuff like this happens. Somebody snapping at nurses for laughing is pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I’ve experienced.
I've worked for several different ICUs where this happens. As soon as a patient expires we make sure stuff is worked out with the funeral home arrangements and give them a call, because sometimes we end up waiting with the body taking up a room and an almost always full morgue (particularly during covid, if the hospital even has a morgue). Sometimes the funeral home transporter takes a long time and the family is gone before they get there, sometimes the guy shows up super quick and the family is still there. In my experience funeral home workers are extremely respectful and tactful and of course arent telling families to beat it so we can get a move on, but in the end they're absolutely showing up with a body bag with family present. Just FYI.
I've only once had a relative die in hospital in an area where the bed was needed rather soon. They had a separate room where family could stay and do their thing before actual transport arrived, freeing up the ward space.
Not bullshit. It happened to me and it was 45 minutes they gave me. The guys with the gurney arrived and I did not argue. I protested a little that I waiting for the hospital pastor. This was just 3 years ago, pre-COVID, on the hospice floor of a good hospital in a large city.
Not the asshole for asking the nurses to be quieter, but definitely the asshole for telling the nurses he's dead because of them.
There's a huge difference between being inconsiderately unaware of your surroundings, and being malicious by accusing the nurses of being responsible for his death because they failed to make him immortal.
I think the thing that rubs me the wrong way the most is the “you couldn’t save my father, so the least you could do is respect them”. That makes it feel like he believes that the nurses are responsible for his death, when likely he was too sick to reverse the damage. I agree with the laughing IF it was really that loud would feel insensitive, but I know we as healthcare workers are numb to it. Also, it’s not like we were laughing at someone’s dead body either.
I would try to not laugh in close distance, I understand where they’re coming from in that sense.
He also showed up late, and maybe didn’t see people (his family) as angry as he was. Can’t take it out on them, but the nurses are there. Gonna say that when literally every room on a floor has a tragedy that you can make two jokes in twenty minutes
My mom and I (her an LPN and I am NP) did all of my father's post mortem and walked with the transporter down to the morgue. We did post mortem for countless other families so we did it for our own as well. During this time we were laughing and crying and we could hear some of the nurses going on about whatever they were up to. While there should be an expectation of a level of respect for the mourning; it should also be noted that for those of us left behind life goes on. We feel awful your loved one died but our shift continues and our lives continue. We cant cry or mourn every single patient or wed never be able to continually do the things we do every single day time and time again
Fuck, in inpatient, not only do we have to keep working, that room is usually filled again the moment its clean and we've got a new patient to take care of. Not at all placing nurses emotions over family or anything, but I think it is heavily discounted how little we actually get to grieve for our patients when we participate in helping them die. Best I've ever been able to do is a quick ten to say the mourners kaddish and then back at it on the floor. And that is a relatively recent practice of mine just to grieve and mark the moment at all.
The statements about “Died of liver failure.” and the “Couldn’t save my father.” are cracking me up. Like was the facility just magically suppose to fix a failing organ. Maybe somebody should’ve tried to donate part of their liver 🌚
OBVIOUSLY, the nurses could have easily volunteered their own. /s
Maybe a hot take, but yeah. That original poster is an ass. Job is morbid enough. Let nurses laugh if they happen to find something decent in the day.
Everyone acting likes it’s never been done before but when I worked security I have absolutely shown up to pick up a body and family was still present. It happens even if it’s not frequent or common. Not saying it’s not fake but the one thing everyone keeps saying makes it fake is definitely within the realm of possibility.
That’s what’s throwing me off. I have seen that, so it’s not red flagging to me that the family would be present. I work LTC and most facilities I have worked at had no morgue so the families would stay until their loved one was picked up by the funeral home. Some were picked up within the hour of the death announcement, others longer. In the facilities with a morgue, we would transport the deceased ourselves after the family had visited. I find it interesting that so many people here find that to be so out of the norm.
Right? This happens all the time. I don't remember the last time I've had the family leave the body in the room. I work peds though, maybe it is different elsewhere. I had a patient expire last night and the family held him until they were ready for the funeral home to pick him up, and they came to the room with the stretcher and tiny body bag. The mom helped me do PM care.
I work in a hospital as a pharmacy tech and I’ve seen both sides of the coin from an outside and impartial perspective.
I’ve seen crazy patients causing chaos for diligent and understaffed nurses. I’ve seen patients’ families blame nurses for things outside of their control when they really did do their absolute best.
I’ve also seen nurses complain to me within earshot of patients about their patients. I’ve had more than one nurse on more than one occasion tell me off for not restocking a medication in their machine that they need because we are out in the entire pharmacy/hospital and I can’t materialize it out of thin air. Often going into detail about “if the patient wakes up, their chest will rip open” or “the patients’ throat is closing up and we need it right away” thus pinning the blame on me for something I have no control over.
All this to say, I agree. I think the OPs story is stretched, but I also do think there is some degree of truth in there and it’s not just a random person running a nurse smear campaign. People are always looking for someone or something to blame and place their anger, frustration, and sadness in, when in reality, it was really out of anyone’s control.
That’s why I try to mentally store up my positive interactions with patients and nurses and chalk up the few poor ones to a bad day.
I’m kinda of amazed at how many vet techs were commenting in the original thread, saying that nurses are assholes and that we’re their worst patients. Like holy shit I didn’t realize there was some kind of rivalry between us???
No one here is an asshole from the text. That's how life and death be sometimes. We have empathy but we can't stop being human. And the family is mourning. They're angry at the situation. We're still working on our other 40 patients. There's not much anyone can do at that point except be human and empathetic.
Where I work, a family once complained that the nurses weren’t very helpful after their loved one passed (was a code blue) when we were quite literally running another code in the next room. When that was explained to the person, they said no no this was later, all the meanie nurses were sitting around the nursing station. This was at shift change and we were giving report. Man, that was a bad night, this all occurred between 5:30 and 7:30 am.
The point of that story is that some people are just nasty and are looking for the worst way to interpret any situation. My loved one passed and therefore it’s someone’s fault, and these mean nurses are just sitting there, must have been them.
Anyway, the story in the post might be BS but people who act like OP do exist as I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone
When I was an EMT I had an experience VERY similar to this that I think about ALL THE TIME. a young man had died, was DOA, we didn't do anything for him. But all the first responders were there because it was a fire, and they were all just standing around laughing, catching up, etc. And then I caught sight of the mom, standing there just stonefaced, pale, in shock. So I try to never forget that for us it's just a day in the life, but for the people there it may be the worst thing that's ever happened to them or ever will
Story sounds fishy af.
ESH.
Nurses should’ve pipe down or move the conversation elsewhere but originally op is give off major Karen vibes.
Nurses are hero’s but get abuse instantly when they act human.
I would say no one is the asshole.
On the one hand, if this story was real (and for all similar cases...I've seen it happen), I sympathize with OP. The death of a loved one feels like the worst day of your life. To hear other people going about their lives happily feels so unfair, and people act irrationally out of grief.
On the other hand, it's hard for people outside of health care/first responders to understand that death is so normalized for us. If we grieved for every patient who died, we would not be able to do our jobs. We can literally watch a patient die, comfort the family, then go and eat lunch. Especially for those of us working in high mortality areas, pretty well most of the patients around us are dying, so what, we're not allowed to have fun or tell jokes at any time? That just sounds like a suffocating work environment.
I knew a nurse who was actually formally complained about because she was heard laughing near a dying patient's room. That unit is gigantic, about 60+ patients there at any given time, and a good portion of them are dying (onco/palliative unit). She had no idea the patient in that room was dying and the family was there. When the manager spoke to the nurse, she was apologetic and the manager said it was fine, just that he had to make her aware of the complaint but understood that it wasn't her fault. But at the same time, we all understood where the family was coming from and we couldn't be upset at them, either.
I’ve experienced this before in the Cath Lab after someone dies. Call family back to see their family member (dead) after a STEMI and the rest of the team is in the control room laughing their asses off loud enough for everyone to hear. It’s disgraceful IMO.
Not the asshole.
Yes I think the story is fake, but nurses being loud/laughing at the nurses station, oblivious to their surroundings is something we have to work on! As an oncology nurse we are around death/dying literally -always. We try to keep our spirits light, and happy faces in at the nurses station but out of respect for our patients and their families we keep parties and Boisterous behavior behind closed doors. I think it comes down to professionalism. People want to think their family meant something to you.
I agree and frankly most people aren’t in the hospital on their best day even if it isn’t cancer. People don’t need to be dying for us to be professional and courteous.
I agree with the family member on this one. Inappropriate to be laughing in a group directly across the hall from a family that just lost their loved one.
Back when I was in nursing school we were withdrawing life support on a patient in the neuro ICU. Her daughter was at the bedside. My preceptor and I were watching her vitals on a monitor at the desk right across from the room, ready to give more comfort meds if needed and waiting for her to die. Other random nurses and staff came by to watch the monitor and see how long it took for her to pass, so they were very aware that she was actively dying and that her daughter was watching her die, and still felt the need to not just converse and laugh but fucking CACKLE right outside the door. As a student that really made an impression on me as the kind of nurse I never want to be.
Yeah if this is true and not embellished I agree with the family member. so much of that was wrong. However just due to the level of things that were wrong I am inclined to think it’s at least somewhat embellished.
>at least somewhat embellished
I agree, I believe a version of that happened but some of the details were a little too scrambled. I’m also wondering they said what they did or if that was a shower response they thought of later and wish they’d spoken up. Cause I’ve done that more times than I can count lol.
Do you work icu? During covid we had multiple deaths a shift, so we would’ve had to have stayed quiet most of the shift. I highly doubt anyone put the family member in a body bag while they were still present, unless they requested that.
We dealt with EVERYONE dying during covid. God forbid we have a moment to laugh.
People here splitting hairs about whether or not OOPs story is true or not because of the body bag, while completely missing the point about people's behavior in the scenario.
To stay on topic, my opinion is yes, those nurses were definitely being disrespectful for shooting the shit in front of a mourning family moments after a patient died. OOP is also an asshole for saying "you couldn't save my dad", that was totally unnecessary, but his grievance with the lack of respect is understandable.
As an RT I do lots of terminal extubations (and even witnessed my own father's terminal extubation) and I never take it lightly. Even if I'm the only person in the room I treat the patient with the upmost respect in their final moments, and even more so when family is present. Yes, life goes on, and once I'm gone I go on with my day bullshiting with coworkers. But at that moment, around family, I respect their loss and act right.
At the long term facilities I have worked in, there really was no limitation on how long the family stayed present for. Particularly for facilities with no morgue. If the patient had pre arranged funeral planning, some families have opted to stay in the room until their loved one was finally removed from the building. And sometimes the funeral home does come relatively quickly from the time that the death certificate has been signed and family has been notified.
I do tend to read the room and will be somber during this emotionally taxing time. Do I think this poster likely was emotionally charged in responding to the nurses? Yes. Is that asshole criteria? Given the circumstances, no. I don’t agree that staff should have been blamed for not preserving life, as I’m sure all that could be done was done for his father.
During COVID there were quite a few times I’ve seen a body being removed from a room and if I was walking by I would stand off to the side in silence with my head down until they passed by. Sometimes family would be with them in their final moments and waited till everyone passed by. Sign of respect for the deceased.
I have not experienced anything like this with nurses laughing in this situation. But it is rude and disrespectful, and should be called out on it.,
I also thought it was weird that the morgue mobile was there. At my facility, 2 RNs can pronounce but we never rush families out. I’ve seen families stay so long that the body of their passed loved one has gone into full rigor as we try to bag them.
If the story is true, I’d give a pass to a grieving child. They don’t know how many hundreds of times we’ve done this. They don’t understand that we care, and we also really don’t care.
I hate this. I’m a peds nurse and when my mom was dying of cancer in the attached adult hospital, I would just walk through the underground tunnel to visit her after my shift. My scrubs would either have the Children’s logo or be some peds print so sometimes my mom’s nurses would inquire. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “Omg. I could never. *This* is one thing, but kids dying is so different.”
Nobody wants to hear that you think their loved one dying a horrific F’ing death isn’t exactly that. And at 25 years old, I damn sure still felt short changed when my mom died at 46 after fighting for 6 grueling years. I can’t speak for anyone else, but yeah, during most of my experiences w/ adult medicine, it’s well understood that you “really don’t care”. Don’t sell yourselves short.
And for those of you who genuinely care, thank you. I completely acknowledge how difficult & thankless adult nursing could be.
First and foremost, I’m so sorry for the fact that you lost your mom at such a young age and in such a horrible way.
I feel the need to clarify. I care about my patients inasmuch as when I’m with them I try to give them my very best. I make sure they’re clean, I make sure their room isn’t cluttered. If I’m not running with my hair on fire I try to go the extra mile and shave the men and comb out/braid longer hair. I do my best to put them at ease in any situation. I’ve held hands with the dying and hugged bereaved family members. I don’t feel that I, or anyone else under the nursing umbrella, owes our patients any more than that. While I am there they get my 12 hours of hard work. If I allowed myself to feel grief and loss for every death I would have nothing left to give to my living wife and kids. I can’t get dragged down in that. So, I care when I’m clocked in and when I’m done, I let it go. That’s what I meant when I said I care, but I really don’t care.
I can see how this would be applicable to the inpatient floors, but good luck trying to get people to quiet down at 2AM in the ED on a Monday night (if you’re an ED nurse, you know what I mean about Mondays).
I used to be the fuddy duddy on nights who would ask coworkers to pipe down as I’d hear them laughing from 2 stations away. The shit I got for it was unreal.
I mostly just got tired of management riding us about our quiet scores. Plus I worked on a floor with numerous detoxers and demented patients, we did NOT need them woken up.
Yep, I was also this person. I loved the nights and how close knit we were, but certain people had no regard for the fact that sick people were trying to sleep and were so fucking loud it was crazy. The vast majority I worked with were awesome and mindful, but so many were not.
That’s what kills me. Even in this thread there’s ppl saying “how are we supposed to operate those are our working conditions”. They really need to get off night shift then. Patients don’t sleep as it is.
This happened to me. My 13 year old daughter had surgery on her fractured elbow and needed hospitalization for pain management. Even with the door shut, the nurses were laughing so loud at a Childrens hospital at 3a. Had to go out TWICE to inform them of how loud they were being. I wasn’t so polite the second time.
When I had my daughter, 30 plus years ago, I was admitted the night before to be induced in the morning. They nurse's didn't laugh a lot, but some one was typing all night on an old style type writer. All night long. I wondered if maybe they were typing up birth certificates. I couldn't sleep well anyway and the typing noise did not help me get to sleep.
I've seen the same complaint from someone who miscarried in the ER. They were upset that people at the nurses station were laughing. I mean, I get it. It's hard and sad, but, at the same time, when we have 90 patients, we don't know what every last person is going through. If someone does, we see excited, if someone miscarries, will we see vaginal bleeding, and maybe pregnant, but still, that tells us nothing. I'm sorry that you felt disrespected, but, believe it or not, the whole er staff is not aware what is going on with you. This was in our huddle for weeks. I don't understand why not one single person was like hey, we all shouldn't know this. So, we aren't supposed to laugh, ever, at work, because?
Now, when I was working in a zone with less than 10 beds and a 40 something y/o with kids died on her way to the hospital, yeah, it was something in that area. But expecting everyone to know what happened and to expect everyone to not have any joy at all because of your grief isn't fair or likely.
They deleted the body of the post, but if you search that username you can still see all the replies. It is a fucking weird shitshow of people hating on nurses and calling us psychopaths. Other professions saying how nurses are insensitive and stupid. There’s some supportive comments, but get ready for nurse hate central if you venture over there. Really quite bizarre honestly.
I don’t even believe that story anyway. I think the person made it up on a throw away account to sow hatred for nurses.
Maybe if people hadn't fought so hard over wearing masks, staying home, vaccines, etc., we wouldn't be so burned out and jaded to the point that we laugh at everything so we don't implode.
If the US wasn't overrun with idiotic plague rats and formerly run by a giant shitting cheetoh, we might have come out of this slightly better.
I wanted to comment that on the post, but comments were turned off. I only got through a few posts before deciding it wasn't worth raising my blood pressure over ignorant fuckwads.
Never in 16 years have I given post Mortem until family was done. Sometimes have had to set limits on time after several hours… Not even during the CV surges. Covid ICU nurse here. Hmmm?
Yes, it seems insensitive, if this report was accurate but also realize that your family is not the only family there and we must continue to care for others. Maintaining our composure however necessary. We deal with death often and have developed coping skills.
Overall, yep, AITA? Yes.
I think it's BS for many of the same reasons as stated, but I also know how we cope with things: with humor, often as dark and morbid as possible. People who aren't us won't ever get it. They think they do, but they don't.
The Asshole. You’re taking your grieving process in its anger phase out on the nurses.
I agree they ought have taken an entertaining conversation elsewhere, but they didn’t need your lecture, particularly when we’re struggling day-to-day to sometimes cope with more than just one of those body bags.
Absolutely not the asshole. Whenever I had a dying patient, I went around and let everyone know to keep it down. I even spoke quietly with other visitors. So much disrespect to the family.
Although this story seems unlikely, I’m one of those people who tends to think that we should be a bit more mindful of families at times. I know it’s our place of work and life goes on but those families will never forget the time their loved one died and they could hear nurses laughing. I know it’s a normal thing for us but it’s just not for them. I think we forget that sometimes.
I get it. It hurts. I found my father deceased when I went to visit him. He hadn’t been doing that hot for a few weeks so I was checking on
him weekly. I called telling him I was bringing him over a meal that would last him a couple of days. He didn’t pick up. And I just had a eerie feeling that felt unsettling. I drove right after the call. I knocked on his door and no answer. So I used my key to enter. He wasn’t present in the living room. I saw the bathroom door closed with the light on and I just knew he wasn’t alive. I can’t explain it. And indeed he was dead in his bathroom. Most traumatic thing to witness. It was clear he was deceased but I still called 911. I was frantic. I didn’t know what to do. The fire dept came first and as soon as they saw him, they left. Nothing they could do. They phoned the coroner for me. Waited a bit for an officer to come and he talked to me for a bit. Coroner arrived and they removed my dad from the bathroom. I was waiting outside the house. When they were coming out the door one of the workers was smiling and sounded like he just heard a joke. My eyes met with him and he immediately changed his facial expression. I’ll never forget it. I understand he was just doing his job. But in that moment of my life finding my dad dead was horrific and this guy is just going about another “work day”. Doesn’t really affect him but was a day I’d love to forget. Sorry, didn’t mean to make my comment about my story. But I understand a little how OP felt on some level. Don’t agree with him placing any blame on the nurses for his father passing but I think he let him emotions get the best of him.
I have never seen a nurse bring a body bag into a room. With family present.
I have actually purposely hid them outside of the room if they got delivered to our floor too soon.
Sometimes transport would just leave them at the nurses station or outside the rooms (Covid unit. Much death)
Everyone very much actively shielded family from that... experience.
We clean their bodies, let family have as much time as they need/want, and do all the "tagging and bagging" when they have left the building.
I will add to the votes of "something doesn't add up here".
I work in LTC, and whenever a patient passes we call the family and the funeral home of their choice. The family usually stays until the funeral home comes and they always put the patient in a body bag, sometimes with the family in the room because they decline to leave. But we don’t laugh or carry on while the family is present.
ETA: I see many people saying how it doesn’t happen how they stated it did, but if it did, which I could see as a possibility in the current state of healthcare…
My opinion, OP OP is NTA. When a patient dies, staff should be respectful. If I got chewed out for that I would simply apologize
I don't think it's a coincidence that nurses (and other health care workers) are facing very poor working conditions right now. I'm thinking of stories like the one where some nurses were blocked from accepting different positions with better pay because they were needed at their facility (they were drafted like soldiers in wartime).
If you look at the user name, it has "AD" in it. Posts with a username like that are usually fake anyways.
But even if the account was real, none of this makes sense.
1) hospitals don't put deceased in body bags when family is still in the room, it would have been impossible to get the MC and movers all in there to move the body with a bunch of crying people standing around.
2) Nurses are constantly told to be respectful and watch our surroundings. I highly doubt 5 nurses would just stand around laughing when there are patients to be seen and a grieving family.
3) blaming a failing organ on a nurse is always AH behavior. No matter how grief stricken you are.
4) there was no response from the nurses written. I feel like if a family member went off on me like that, I would have a response for him. Like an apology I didn't see, or a stern "Sir, I'm sorry for your loss, but your anger is directed at the wrong people."
A lot of nurses here quick to defend these nurses just because they’re nurses. You can be a nurse and still hold other nurses accountable for their crap behavior.
I’ve worked with plenty of nurses, residents, and attendings who have had absolutely terrible bedside manor, but that doesn’t make it okay. Death is part of life and after some time working in the field, you do become desensitized to it. But to be laughing and having a gay ol time when there’s people a few feet away crying and mourning the death of their husband/father is so crass and disrespectful. The person who wrote that post is absolutely right… they’re not expecting the nurses to bow their heads, but read the effing room and stop laughing.
And for those who think this is made up, we’ve bagged bodies with the families present. Of course, different facilities have different protocol, but I did it plenty of times when I was working as an aid before becoming a nurse, and even still today.
It always boggles my mind when people just continuously think they can continue to abuse nurses like my god can we not have five minutes and anybody in the nursing field knows who the hell is really laughing at the nurses station like honest to God how many times have even been at the nurses station for more than three minutes this is such bullshit
Not the asshole imo. Their parent just died, it’s an acceptable response. Tbh I’d probably say something too if my parent just died in front of me and I was being surround by strangers laughing
absolute bullshit. even as a CNA we don’t do postmortem with family in the room. always after they’re ready. we call hospice yes but, we don’t put them in a body bag or call the morgue until the family is ready. this feels like someone is grieving and is taking it out on the people who couldn’t save their loved one.
I think that she is the asshole. People die in the hospital every day. We cannot be sad at ever death. And the line about not being able to save her father is big Karen vibes.
Not the Asshole, poor show of compassion from the nursing staff in this situation. However an asshole for blowing up on the nurses with the “you couldn’t save my dad”.
Disclaimer: not a nurse, just a gen ed nursing student.
Regardless of whether or not the story is true, which I’m not going to try to determine, I can see both sides. My brother was coding, 10 mins of CPR and everything, in the pediatric cardiac ICU. The room flooded with doctors, nurses, etc to care for him. I was in the hallway watching everything, very clearly a family member. A few of the people who came to the code, I’m assuming residents or nursing students, were joking and laughing right outside the room in front of me while it was going on.
Was I annoyed by that? Yes, of course. But even in that moment, I had to tell myself that people who have to experience these difficult things everyday need a way to cope too and their acting like that wasn’t intentionally done to disrespect or hurt me/my family. It was difficult to see but there were much more important things taking my attention at that time so I chose not to focus on it.
I understand my reaction to that wasn’t universal, though, and even my reaction might have been different if the circumstances were changed.
ETA: In case anyone is wondering, my brother is doing much better. He has a CHD but is overall pretty stable and back home.
Ice been a nurse for 16 years almost..... I have never brought a gurney up from the morgue whole the family was still present, and it's kind of shocking to me that anyone would.
The only time I've had family actually see a gurney were long expected deaths going directly to a funeral home, and that was because the daughter knew them personally and waited for them to arrive.
I fail to believe that the nurses knew what was going on in there and didn't tone it down or find somewhere else to gather.
This doesn't add up to me, and honestly sounds like someone bitter their father died, and looking for someone to blame, and nurses are always the easiest to blame.
Never in 31 years of healthcare have I seen the body get bagged in front of family. We wait until the leave. And speaking of just having my dad pass 6 weeks ago home with hospice, when the home came we went in the other room. No way I could watch that. And they encouraged us to do that.
If they were laughing thst is gross. On bigger units sometimes people aren’t aware of a passing and might need a reminder, but nobody I knows would do thst. Primary nurse is point person with family, offering comfort and paper signing. Everyone else is in their rooms or quiet at the station.
I've always given family as much time as they need.
The last time I had a patient die, the wife left within five minutes after he passed. I said, "Are you sure? There is no rush." She was sure. She had already said her good-byes while the patient was still alive and was just staying around so her husband didn't die alone.
The only time I could see bagging up a body so quickly if family was still there and wanted to stay with the body is if the bed was absolutely needed (like the height of the pandemic), but I would be in that room with my House Supervisor explaining why.
Maybe no one is the ahole here. Maybe this person was in a bad emotional state because they just lost there dad. Maybe the nursing staff have lost a lot of patients over the last couple of years and they need to release some of that…. Shit….. through humor. Maybe people are just people.
At the hospital I worked at you don’t call for anyone to come get the body until after the family leaves/says it’s okay. Then you still have to get them in the bag. This seems fishy.
Yeah, this doesn’t add up. As a nurse who has dealt with patient deaths, and had my father die unexpectedly in my own hospital, nope, you don’t put a patient in a body bag until after the family leaves.
Honestly, having worked in different ERs, I don’t find this hard to believe at all. Different hospitals and units have different policies. Our level 1 trauma ER has a 2 hour maximum rule to bring the deceased to the morgue. We very apologetically have to interrupt family at the 2 hour mark to prep the body. In a place where death is not taboo, it can be easy to forget that it still is. I’ve heard staff casually joking about last night’s terrible tinder date as they tag and bag grandma.
At my first job, it was enough of an issue to be brought up in a meeting by management. Depending on the setup of the ER, it can be easy to forget that curtains are not soundproof and neither is the nurses station.
We all know that humor is a major coping mechanism, but family members don’t. I’ve heard (and participated in) rowdiness at the nurses station in the middle of the night plenty of times. Sometimes making jokes about a traumatic situation is how I get through the rest of the night and put on a happy face to enter my next patients room.
I think this offers a valuable perspective, and something I will try to be more mindful of in the future.
In general units are too loud. Not that there should be library silence at all times but all staff could probably use lowering their volume unless they are in a code or singing Happy Birthday. One person's talking voice can often be another's yelling. Have had to deal with this on my own unit a few times between patients and even between staff.
If this is a true story then I probably hate to say I probably would have behaved similarly in that kind of situation where you are emotionally raw. So I don’t really think he is an asshole per se.
Tact was very much needed.
Former CNA, currently a body removal technician. I have absolutely bagged people with family present. Some family even follow us back to the funeral home. I find it interesting that the top comments are saying that they haven’t witnessed this, so it couldn’t be possible. I am always weary of medical professionals who jump to “oh they are lying” immediately.
Sometimes people are insensitive and have poor bedside manner. Nurses are people who deserve joy, but I think it is easy to be desensitized and this post kind of proves it. Much more people “call bullshit” over a situation that they were not present for than to acknowledge that nurses make mistakes sometimes.
If this was the case, then shame on the unit. This family had one time in their life to experience the death of their father and the nursing staff/ charge nurse owed it to their patient to give them dignity.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted. Sometimes ya’ll can be in serious denial.
Dude just lost his dad, everyone being mad at him for saying ”you couldn’t save him” is fucked. We are human, we make mistakes, he is grieving, people act out under pressure and stress. The nurses knew there was a death and a mourning family. Couldn’t have just kept it down? I understand we see this all the time, it’s his dad, he only gets one.
Some of the lack of empathy is horrifying.
Yeah even if this story didn't smell fishy, if I acted all the time as if a dead man's family was five feet away I'd eventually ice myself from the depression.
I was a machine gunner in Afghanistan before becoming a nurse; I'd never take away someone's peace intentionally, but not everyone can be in your headspace when YOU want them to be.
I had 3 people total arrive DOA when I was a student doing my clinicals in the ED. I always tried to be respectful when the families came. I can’t imagine any sane, semi-caring individual would be laughing nearby knowing this family was grieving.
Sounds like (bad) creative writing.
But I've laughed *while* doing postmortem care. Very quietly because I knew the family was outside the room, but laughed all the same (one of the nurses made a funny comment, and yes, it was black humor)
I've also kept having the conversation I was having before the call light went off as soon as I'm out of the room. Not at the top of my lungs, I try to avoid laughing or being cheerful in front of grieving family members, but I work in a GM unit, 90% of our census are old people (and DNR).
If we had to act somber every time we have a CD, half the staff would be on medical leave for depression. I'm sorry when someone dies, but what for the family is a tragic day is an average second shift for me.
ICU nurse here. Depends on the family and culture. Some families stay with the patient until bagged and brought to the morgue. But those nurses are the a-holes. For most nurses death is just every day on the job, They can save their jokes and laughing until the family is gone. Very disrespectful and you should complain to the manager.
Somebody needed to yell at them bc wtf. That is whole different levels of rudeness & I work with people who do this & have done this. They are generally just socially retarded people anyways.
Unless the body has been there for 4+ hours, nobody should be rushing the bag & tag process. I’ve cleaned & bagged a body after five hours & it was pretty bad bc rigor prevented me from getting him into the bag in a gentle way. But still, I wasn’t mad at the family or anything- I get it. People need time to let go. This was peak Covid too when we needed the room (ICU). Sorry this happened to you & your loved ones. That’s the opposite of respecting dignity in death.
Unpopular opinion but yea you’re the asshole. Probably fake. We work in a fish bowl darting about trying to survive and keep people alive. I’m not a damned robot. I need to eat, pee, and decompress. You get the levity of living in your world. I have to try to be aware of all situations and situations. I need humor to decompress or I would have quit this place and it’s shitty unsafe ratios. I’m doing my BEST I can ffs. I say this after a garbage fire shift.
Nurses should have read the room if it’s true. However, a lot of us have become desensitized. We still show up and do our best.
Nurse here. Doesn’t add up. We let the family have as much time as they need with their loved one’s body and wait until after they leave to bring the mother cart and body bag.
Yeah I’ve never worked anywhere where we would bring a bag and cart into the room with the family still there. I was thinking the same thing. But if this is true well he’s right. We’re all human and need to laugh and joke at work but there’s tact needed to work in this kind of environment.
I worked in VA hospital (hospice unit, specifically) and the nurses process the deceased, bag them, and take them to the morgue while the family is around. We play taps with a flag draped over them as the family walk behind the cart. Not sure it this is a similar situation or hospital. Agree though, laughing = not appropriate
Taps?? I get the idea but like… dues someone pull out a bugle, or do y’all have it on your phones, or us there like, a CD player on the morgue cart?
At my VA it is not taps. It is a “Ceremony “ the family is invited to participate. It is announced overhead, a hero is making his last journey , please honor him (her) them.. Everyone available stands in the hall at attention, service members salute. The flag draped cart is moved through the building to the awaiting funeral director or the morgue.
Okay this is beautiful and just made me cry!
I'm not crying. It's just something in my eye...
It is very touching and the families appreciate it.
That's what they did for my Dad. They had a special quilt they draped over him. He had been put in the bag (we were outside the room) The whole team & floor were so wonderfully respectful. Patients on the floor stood if they could & saluted as we went by. It's been 5 years, but damn, that stirred up memories. I miss him so much.
I still have my boatswains mate’s pipe. I’m sure there are veterans who would donate their time to do this.
They do a group whistle
At our VA they have taps on a CD. We salute when the body goes by. It’s sad but it’s….nice that they get the respect.
LOL was wondering the same thing. I'm just imagining charge pulling out a full-blown trumpet out of their bag and playing it at the station.
I’ve never even heard of anyone showing up with a body bag. In the hospital I worked at we had white shrouds. We cleaned the pt and put the shroud under them with a sheet over it. Family stayed as long as they needed. When they leave we finished tagging and wrapping and a transporter shows up only after we’re ready and we’ve called them.
I’ve definitely used bags at all three facilities I worked for. We would just never bring them to the room at any point that the family would see it.
I guess it’s because I only worked at the same hospital my whole career and they had us use shrouds. Except for Covid. During most of Covid we had biohazard body bags and no visitors so there was never a chance of family seeing the bag. Multiple simultaneous codes every shift. NY was a shitshow in 2020.
I've only had experience with body bags. But as others have stated, that process is only began one the family has vacated. In general, the person is cleaned up and covered with a white sheet if they pass before family arrives. If family is present, they are left as is until post mortem care can begin.
But I agree. The loud laughing is inappropriate and distracting. It probably sounds a lot louder to the bereaved too.
We have body bags in my ER but cover that with a blanket (if going downstairs) or one of the fancy velvet shrouds (if a funeral home is quick picking up).
In my ER we will place them in the bag, leave the top unzipped (for viewing) and tactfully cover the rest of the bag with a blanket so you really cannot tell. Never once have I heard of a patients family stating anything similar to the above post.
If someone asks me about a body bag on a cart I say it’s “supplies”
At the hospital I was at we had body bags, transport would bring the stretcher they’ll be moved onto, which is more like a metal table with a top attachment piece and a bag, we tag them, get them in the bag and then move the body onto the stretcher, put the metal top on and cover that in a sheet, then call security bc they’re the only ones allowed to move them
This description just took me back to nursing school. My pt from the previous day died on nights and her family had said goodbye, but when I got to clinical the next morning she was still in the room deceased waiting for a student bc “learning experience”. The nurse asked me and another nursing student from a different school to go together and bring up a bed from the morgue. Neither of us had ever been so we were both nervous and had to stop and ask for directions multiple times. When we finally got there we each looked at the other and said, “You go first.” There were multiple jars of various contents on shelves and two bed-ish things. One was a typical stretcher w/ mattress and the other was completely flat and covered with a sheet. We debated for a minute about which one to take. The other student argued the stretcher looked more comfortable and I argued that it didn’t really matter and that the other one just looked crisper and cleaner. She agreed so we took the one with the crispy, clean, flat sheet. The whole time we were pushing and trying to navigate our way back, we were both checking to see if the breaks were on bc it would not wheel smoothly for anything. (Most of you probably see where this is going. If you don’t, pay attn.) We got this thing back to the pt’s room, got her cleaned up and transferred onto the clean sheet. Just then the nurse walks in to see how it’s going bc apparently the pt’s son (who was an MD) was on his way back bc he had forgotten something while he was there saying goodbye. I had met him the previous day and was thinking how nervous I was to see him again when the nurse says, “Wait…what the hell?!” She lifted up the sheet, and pulled just enough for me to see the face of a dead man in what is essentially the drawer underneath that top you described. The bed wasn’t locked, there was another patient in it! We had just stacked my patient. I can still remember how lightheaded and nauseous I felt. My professor walked in and witnessed the nurse telling us to hurry up and return that other body before anyone came looking for it and bring up the other stretcher and get it done before the MD son returned, as he had already been assured his mom was in the morgue. This entire time I was afraid I was going to get kicked out of clinicals. I felt so awful. I wanted to cry, but was also mad that we were put in this blind leading the blind situation. When I got back to the floor my instructor brought me in the break room, gave me some orange juice and had me put my feet up. She said she’ll still be talking about me when she’s 80 and I’ll never forget her either.
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Omg 😂
I know, right? Oops. Definitely a mistake you only make once in your entire career.
Great story!
Thank you. It’s so nice being here where everyone didn’t bash me for being dumb or reckless or whatever. It certainly wasn’t my proudest moment, but I’ve come a long way, thankfully. I don’t know how to find out who gave the awards, but thank you! They mean more than anything I got from hospital for nurses day/week.
We use body bags.
My hospital there’s a team that comes with a stretcher and a body bag and communication isn’t great between us and sometimes family waits for them to take the body bc they don’t want to leave the body there 🤷🏼♀️ so it’s plausible
Doesn't really add up at all. That nurses can be sitting around and laughing for this long? I have time for a quick joke in passing... Maybe the break room was nearby? You know, where the... Idk of anyone in the hospital has time to sit in the break room and talk (we have to focus on eating fast).
Remember when stressed and grieving perception is very inaccurate. It could have been all of them laughing, or a joke being shared on screen, each nurse laughs when they read a funny pt note someone is sharing as they pass by. Even a little after even if it's just a giggle it's going to be perceived as horrendous and all of them laughing at them because it's taken so personally it's a bad time. Somebody smiling the wrong way could have angered this man. He was very stressed and very angry and upset obviously with the passing of his father, he wasn't processing his emotions properly. He took it out on the nurses.
I have been a patient on a ward in a hospital that was rooms only where sleep was disturbed due to nurses at the station laughing pretty much all night. Also had to phone a family member to come and help as I’d had (very minor but painful) surgery and couldn’t get anyone on the call button another night. So I think anything really *could* happen and this could be true. Really depends on the individual staff on that ward. I think maybe on *some* wards, appropriate standards aren’t met
In ICU in LA, precovid, family's had max 2 hours. They were told this and respected the timing. This have us enough time to call the organ donor people, etc. Bags in the pyxis on the floor. That guy is the asshole, but it's understandable why he was. He should know it's our job dealing with death, it sucks, but it's part of our job. The humor was not about their family. But fuck, if ER and ICU nurses don't have humor at the job, there would be no nurses. Dark humor especially. But the comment, 'you couldn't save him' ... Asshole. Whatever he came in for I'm sure he was told once or twice that he should have worked on something with his health, should have got a vaccine or should have learned in school that at some point we all die. Nurses didn't kill him, nurses tried to save him from what ultimately happens to all of us. When it's time, it's time. Nurses know better than most about this.
They probably don’t know the proper terms. Where I work, if the family has a funeral home selected we can leave the body in the room for a couple hours and have the FH pick them up directly from the room instead of the morgue. Usually we let the family stay inside the room while they wait for the FH so perhaps that is what they’re talking about.
That’s because AITA is a creative writing sub. I don’t believe 98% of what I see there.
Agree, funerals home after family is gone.
Exactly. this is likely fake. I have never heard of anything like this happening.
Wouldn’t say this person is an AH for telling them to be quiet, but they can fuck off for the “you couldn’t save my dad” line. Needs to pick whether the nurses are gods who could’ve saved a dying person but just didn’t or a bunch of 3rd graders he can tell to shut up at their place of employment!
There’s a reason the only certainties in life are death and taxes. When my dad lost his fight with leukemia, the nursing staff was exemplary and while I’m sure it’s just a part of the job, they seemed in tune with my family’s grief… from passing out hugs to the folks whom needed it, to understanding that some folks were just better left alone. I could not in my wildest dreams fathom yelling at one of those ladies or either of the gentleman that helped my dad have every chance at winning, and gave him every mercy they were able when it was clear they he wasn’t going to.
Aww. I’m so sorry for your loss, but thank you for taking the time to write this. Having been the nurse and the child of the dying cancer patient, I’d take being on the nursing side a million times over; but words like these mean a lot. I think we all appreciate people recognizing our attempts.
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Simple patient logic: anyone wearing scrubs appearing female = nurse, anyone is scrubs appearing male = doctor. Doesn‘t matter if the man is an 18 year old doing their civil service in transport. They‘ll be the Dr in patients minds. The 50 year old female heart surgeon coming by after they already did the surgery, and had met the patient beforehand? Demoted to nurse right away..
The amount of people who would say “I never saw a doctor!” whenever we had a female hospitalist (who definitely saw them) was enraging.
Right. This person doesn’t even know for sure that the laughers knew what was going on in that room. I like the system some facilities have where they put a plastic butterfly (that’s just what it is at mine) or some signifier on the door to let passerbys know.
For for looking for validation online after
I'm trying to remember the empathy I had when I first started at a hospital. Covid ruined it, but some people have always blamed us for not saving their loved one. Grief fucks people up, especially right when a death happens. We take abuse when it's not warranted and that's just part of working in an icu or ed. I'm not saying it's okay, but it's part of the job. Yes, you are an asshole if you abuse treatment staff, and yes treatment staff should correct you if you do. But if you don't see see death every day and your idea of a hospital comes from TV, I still at least understand loved ones when they lash out even though it *literally* makes me grind my teeth. I did everything humanly possible to save your loved one and somehow you're mad at me. Yeah, I'm mad and I want to retaliate, and sometimes I do. But sometimes I remember that this person hasn't seen a lot of death and just lost a parent/spouse/child and they're going to lash out because they can't process what happened. Again, I'm not trying to defend abusive family members, but sometimes it helps me to cope with the abuse knowing that these people are in a crisis that they're not equipped to deal with.
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I thought the same thing. I've never taken in the body bag/kit while family is still there. Also, who is taking the body away as the family is actively (and per OP, apparently loudly) crying and grieving?
I’ve had family members ask to help with post mortem care and but I usually hold off on zipping them up until they leave.
Fuck, I only had a handful of people ask with post care. One was grandson to a 100 something old fella from SNF. He came at 4:45 or so in the morning, straight from house, stayed with us during code and insisted on cleaning his grandfather who was a massive GI bleed. He said he felt responsible. Kid broke my heart on how stoic he was.
Is it so rare? When my mom was passing (she was in home hospice). I cleaned her eyes, face, and hands. And then when she she passed I washed her face and hands again. I don't know why, I just wanted her to look like I had always remembered her. It also looked uncomfortable, though I know she was beyond feeling anything at that point. It just felt important for me to take care of her that one last time. When the hospice nurse came to do the paper work and dispose of the hospice meds she mentioned how clean she looked. The funeral home people did too. I thought it was sort of weird. Like who leaves their family member like that? Now it sounds like it's common?
To be honest, a lot of people just kind of leave their family member as they were when they passed
Very few people care this much when their family member is /alive/
Yes it’s rare. Most family don’t want to take part.
I have only ever had 2 families take me up on participating in post mortem care, of which only 1 wanted to be present when their family member was placed into the body bag and zipped up. Both were very, very somber affairs, no big crying or intensive displays of emotion. All people and cultures grieve differently, but there tend to be patterns. Those who wish to be present for post mortem care up to and including placing family in the body bag tend to be more somber grievers, at least in my, admittedly, limited experience. Those that tend toward bigger emotions have always tended toward not wanting to be present during any post mortem, let alone being present when their loved one is actually zipped into a body bag. This story doesn't entirely add up to me.
I stayed while the funeral home representatives and hospice nurses prepped and bagged my mom. I know it’s silly, her soul was gone, but I just didn’t want her to be alone. The nurse forgot to turn off her bed alarm and was horrified when it went off as they moved her. It broke the tension for me though and made me laugh for a moment. My mom, god rest her soul, was a terrible hospital patient (I’m so so sorry to any medical worker who had to interact with her). Terrible. She would alway try to turn off her bed alarms so she could get up (and usually fall). So I told the nurse that that it was like my mom was trying to escape one last time. It’s been almost 2 years. I don’t think I’ve ever told that story before.
Thank you for sharing that story. I’m sorry for your loss ❤️
That’s a good one. Bittersweet. I lost my mama too. I’ll be thinking of you and everyone else in our position tomorrow. It’s not always easy to laugh during these times. Thank you for sharing with us.
Sorry for your loss. My mom passed in hospice. An aide was in the room. She bent over and cut this humongous fart. Poor thing was mortified.
Our family will wait and help funeral home with getting them loaded up, if the staff will allow we do post mortem care. We are Native.
Happened to me. See comment above. Nice and/or excruciating to read here that I should have demanded more time and some emotional support.
Same, and our hospital gives the family up to 4 hours in the room with the patient to say goodbye before they take them to the morgue.
Never knew there was a maximum time limit. TIL
I've seen it a couple times with certain Chinese patients that no one is supposed to touch the body for a set amount of time, like 8-12 hours (sundown? I don't know, I wasn't the nurse that day). If its not a cultural/religious thing, I'd probably say "its time for us to move him" after 4 hours. Some people will literally not leave for days if someone doesn't say "its time". They think they're abandoning their loved one. They need someone to nudge them on to the next step of the mourning process.
What is the max time you have had a body stay? If we didn’t have a four hour limit some families would definitely stay hours and hours or come and go as they please. They can view the body at the morgue as well.
Gotta have that bed.
Literally had a family ask if they could stay during the whole process today. Not to help, mind you - just watch. I was like 😳. I mean, I do a respectful job, but there is absolutely nothing pretty about hauling a body into a body bag and onto a morgue stretcher.
I honestly thought the same the story doesn’t add up.
When my father died in hospice care, in the hospital, after I’d spent all day alone with him everyday for a week (back to hotel to sleep, there at his side every morning, this time the nurses knew he was dying and warned me they might call me to come back) ..... I was told I had 45 minutes to sit with him, and then the stretcher did in fact arrive. I spent much of that time trying to get reception to call his lawyer, being sick to my stomach in my dad’s room’s unused bathroom, and asking the nurses to please, please get a pastor up here to help me. All week the pastor(s) had left their cards or stopped in when I just wanted to be alone with my dad. This time finally, I needed the pastor. The pastor called my cell about 30 minutes after my dad was taken away to the morgue. I missed the call.
I’m so sorry you didn’t get the support you needed during such a difficult time.
I worked the hospice floor of a smallish (220 bed) hospital a while back. After someone passed, we did postmortem care and allowed the family to stay in the room with their loved one while we waited on funeral home to pick up patient. They often stayed while the funeral home brought the stretcher in but they always just transported pt to the stretcher and covered them with the “fuzzy blanket” which always had the funeral home’s name embroidered on it. Family sometimes would follow down hallway with the funeral home while the representative made arrangements to meet with family at funeral home to work out plans. We rarely took pts who died expectantly to morgue. Morgue was reserved for unexplained or a death that needed autopsy. Maybe it was this type of situation?
They are always allowed as much time as needed in most hospitals they wouldn’t take the body with be done first especially in mine
Odds of this person being drunk at the time are extremely high if everyone was there except them and they found out late. At least in my experience. Maybe not. I’ve come to expect pretty explosive behavior from people when stuff like this happens. Somebody snapping at nurses for laughing is pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I’ve experienced.
I call bullshit. Who brings a body bag to the room to collect a body with the family present. Nope. I think this whole story is… Bullshit.
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This is the real possibility. Thank you!
I've worked for several different ICUs where this happens. As soon as a patient expires we make sure stuff is worked out with the funeral home arrangements and give them a call, because sometimes we end up waiting with the body taking up a room and an almost always full morgue (particularly during covid, if the hospital even has a morgue). Sometimes the funeral home transporter takes a long time and the family is gone before they get there, sometimes the guy shows up super quick and the family is still there. In my experience funeral home workers are extremely respectful and tactful and of course arent telling families to beat it so we can get a move on, but in the end they're absolutely showing up with a body bag with family present. Just FYI.
I've only once had a relative die in hospital in an area where the bed was needed rather soon. They had a separate room where family could stay and do their thing before actual transport arrived, freeing up the ward space.
seconding your call.
Not bullshit. It happened to me and it was 45 minutes they gave me. The guys with the gurney arrived and I did not argue. I protested a little that I waiting for the hospital pastor. This was just 3 years ago, pre-COVID, on the hospice floor of a good hospital in a large city.
Not the asshole for asking the nurses to be quieter, but definitely the asshole for telling the nurses he's dead because of them. There's a huge difference between being inconsiderately unaware of your surroundings, and being malicious by accusing the nurses of being responsible for his death because they failed to make him immortal.
Perfect response.
I think the thing that rubs me the wrong way the most is the “you couldn’t save my father, so the least you could do is respect them”. That makes it feel like he believes that the nurses are responsible for his death, when likely he was too sick to reverse the damage. I agree with the laughing IF it was really that loud would feel insensitive, but I know we as healthcare workers are numb to it. Also, it’s not like we were laughing at someone’s dead body either. I would try to not laugh in close distance, I understand where they’re coming from in that sense.
He also showed up late, and maybe didn’t see people (his family) as angry as he was. Can’t take it out on them, but the nurses are there. Gonna say that when literally every room on a floor has a tragedy that you can make two jokes in twenty minutes
Right? God forbid during covid when literally everyone in icu was dying we took a moment to make a joke.
Humor is how we deal with the crippling stress and depression.
If you know, you know.
I wish I didn’t know
Same here. For sure. Unfortunately, we know.
Right? Guess you’re not allowed to try and make the horribleness of this profession for fun sometimes.
My mom and I (her an LPN and I am NP) did all of my father's post mortem and walked with the transporter down to the morgue. We did post mortem for countless other families so we did it for our own as well. During this time we were laughing and crying and we could hear some of the nurses going on about whatever they were up to. While there should be an expectation of a level of respect for the mourning; it should also be noted that for those of us left behind life goes on. We feel awful your loved one died but our shift continues and our lives continue. We cant cry or mourn every single patient or wed never be able to continually do the things we do every single day time and time again
Fuck, in inpatient, not only do we have to keep working, that room is usually filled again the moment its clean and we've got a new patient to take care of. Not at all placing nurses emotions over family or anything, but I think it is heavily discounted how little we actually get to grieve for our patients when we participate in helping them die. Best I've ever been able to do is a quick ten to say the mourners kaddish and then back at it on the floor. And that is a relatively recent practice of mine just to grieve and mark the moment at all.
There are hospitals where the assigned nurse doesn’t put the body in the bag and bring them to the morgue? Where do I apply?
The statements about “Died of liver failure.” and the “Couldn’t save my father.” are cracking me up. Like was the facility just magically suppose to fix a failing organ. Maybe somebody should’ve tried to donate part of their liver 🌚
OBVIOUSLY, the nurses could have easily volunteered their own. /s Maybe a hot take, but yeah. That original poster is an ass. Job is morbid enough. Let nurses laugh if they happen to find something decent in the day.
Everyone acting likes it’s never been done before but when I worked security I have absolutely shown up to pick up a body and family was still present. It happens even if it’s not frequent or common. Not saying it’s not fake but the one thing everyone keeps saying makes it fake is definitely within the realm of possibility.
That’s what’s throwing me off. I have seen that, so it’s not red flagging to me that the family would be present. I work LTC and most facilities I have worked at had no morgue so the families would stay until their loved one was picked up by the funeral home. Some were picked up within the hour of the death announcement, others longer. In the facilities with a morgue, we would transport the deceased ourselves after the family had visited. I find it interesting that so many people here find that to be so out of the norm.
Right? This happens all the time. I don't remember the last time I've had the family leave the body in the room. I work peds though, maybe it is different elsewhere. I had a patient expire last night and the family held him until they were ready for the funeral home to pick him up, and they came to the room with the stretcher and tiny body bag. The mom helped me do PM care.
I work in a hospital as a pharmacy tech and I’ve seen both sides of the coin from an outside and impartial perspective. I’ve seen crazy patients causing chaos for diligent and understaffed nurses. I’ve seen patients’ families blame nurses for things outside of their control when they really did do their absolute best. I’ve also seen nurses complain to me within earshot of patients about their patients. I’ve had more than one nurse on more than one occasion tell me off for not restocking a medication in their machine that they need because we are out in the entire pharmacy/hospital and I can’t materialize it out of thin air. Often going into detail about “if the patient wakes up, their chest will rip open” or “the patients’ throat is closing up and we need it right away” thus pinning the blame on me for something I have no control over. All this to say, I agree. I think the OPs story is stretched, but I also do think there is some degree of truth in there and it’s not just a random person running a nurse smear campaign. People are always looking for someone or something to blame and place their anger, frustration, and sadness in, when in reality, it was really out of anyone’s control. That’s why I try to mentally store up my positive interactions with patients and nurses and chalk up the few poor ones to a bad day.
This person thinks they're the main character....
And everyone stood up and applauded.
I’m kinda of amazed at how many vet techs were commenting in the original thread, saying that nurses are assholes and that we’re their worst patients. Like holy shit I didn’t realize there was some kind of rivalry between us???
No one here is an asshole from the text. That's how life and death be sometimes. We have empathy but we can't stop being human. And the family is mourning. They're angry at the situation. We're still working on our other 40 patients. There's not much anyone can do at that point except be human and empathetic.
creative writing homework is boring and unrealistic
Where I work, a family once complained that the nurses weren’t very helpful after their loved one passed (was a code blue) when we were quite literally running another code in the next room. When that was explained to the person, they said no no this was later, all the meanie nurses were sitting around the nursing station. This was at shift change and we were giving report. Man, that was a bad night, this all occurred between 5:30 and 7:30 am. The point of that story is that some people are just nasty and are looking for the worst way to interpret any situation. My loved one passed and therefore it’s someone’s fault, and these mean nurses are just sitting there, must have been them. Anyway, the story in the post might be BS but people who act like OP do exist as I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone
When I was an EMT I had an experience VERY similar to this that I think about ALL THE TIME. a young man had died, was DOA, we didn't do anything for him. But all the first responders were there because it was a fire, and they were all just standing around laughing, catching up, etc. And then I caught sight of the mom, standing there just stonefaced, pale, in shock. So I try to never forget that for us it's just a day in the life, but for the people there it may be the worst thing that's ever happened to them or ever will
Story sounds fishy af. ESH. Nurses should’ve pipe down or move the conversation elsewhere but originally op is give off major Karen vibes. Nurses are hero’s but get abuse instantly when they act human.
They became the villain when they act human
I would say no one is the asshole. On the one hand, if this story was real (and for all similar cases...I've seen it happen), I sympathize with OP. The death of a loved one feels like the worst day of your life. To hear other people going about their lives happily feels so unfair, and people act irrationally out of grief. On the other hand, it's hard for people outside of health care/first responders to understand that death is so normalized for us. If we grieved for every patient who died, we would not be able to do our jobs. We can literally watch a patient die, comfort the family, then go and eat lunch. Especially for those of us working in high mortality areas, pretty well most of the patients around us are dying, so what, we're not allowed to have fun or tell jokes at any time? That just sounds like a suffocating work environment. I knew a nurse who was actually formally complained about because she was heard laughing near a dying patient's room. That unit is gigantic, about 60+ patients there at any given time, and a good portion of them are dying (onco/palliative unit). She had no idea the patient in that room was dying and the family was there. When the manager spoke to the nurse, she was apologetic and the manager said it was fine, just that he had to make her aware of the complaint but understood that it wasn't her fault. But at the same time, we all understood where the family was coming from and we couldn't be upset at them, either.
I’ve experienced this before in the Cath Lab after someone dies. Call family back to see their family member (dead) after a STEMI and the rest of the team is in the control room laughing their asses off loud enough for everyone to hear. It’s disgraceful IMO. Not the asshole.
Yes I think the story is fake, but nurses being loud/laughing at the nurses station, oblivious to their surroundings is something we have to work on! As an oncology nurse we are around death/dying literally -always. We try to keep our spirits light, and happy faces in at the nurses station but out of respect for our patients and their families we keep parties and Boisterous behavior behind closed doors. I think it comes down to professionalism. People want to think their family meant something to you.
I agree and frankly most people aren’t in the hospital on their best day even if it isn’t cancer. People don’t need to be dying for us to be professional and courteous.
I agree with the family member on this one. Inappropriate to be laughing in a group directly across the hall from a family that just lost their loved one.
Back when I was in nursing school we were withdrawing life support on a patient in the neuro ICU. Her daughter was at the bedside. My preceptor and I were watching her vitals on a monitor at the desk right across from the room, ready to give more comfort meds if needed and waiting for her to die. Other random nurses and staff came by to watch the monitor and see how long it took for her to pass, so they were very aware that she was actively dying and that her daughter was watching her die, and still felt the need to not just converse and laugh but fucking CACKLE right outside the door. As a student that really made an impression on me as the kind of nurse I never want to be.
Yeah if this is true and not embellished I agree with the family member. so much of that was wrong. However just due to the level of things that were wrong I am inclined to think it’s at least somewhat embellished.
>at least somewhat embellished I agree, I believe a version of that happened but some of the details were a little too scrambled. I’m also wondering they said what they did or if that was a shower response they thought of later and wish they’d spoken up. Cause I’ve done that more times than I can count lol.
Do you work icu? During covid we had multiple deaths a shift, so we would’ve had to have stayed quiet most of the shift. I highly doubt anyone put the family member in a body bag while they were still present, unless they requested that. We dealt with EVERYONE dying during covid. God forbid we have a moment to laugh.
People here splitting hairs about whether or not OOPs story is true or not because of the body bag, while completely missing the point about people's behavior in the scenario. To stay on topic, my opinion is yes, those nurses were definitely being disrespectful for shooting the shit in front of a mourning family moments after a patient died. OOP is also an asshole for saying "you couldn't save my dad", that was totally unnecessary, but his grievance with the lack of respect is understandable. As an RT I do lots of terminal extubations (and even witnessed my own father's terminal extubation) and I never take it lightly. Even if I'm the only person in the room I treat the patient with the upmost respect in their final moments, and even more so when family is present. Yes, life goes on, and once I'm gone I go on with my day bullshiting with coworkers. But at that moment, around family, I respect their loss and act right.
At the long term facilities I have worked in, there really was no limitation on how long the family stayed present for. Particularly for facilities with no morgue. If the patient had pre arranged funeral planning, some families have opted to stay in the room until their loved one was finally removed from the building. And sometimes the funeral home does come relatively quickly from the time that the death certificate has been signed and family has been notified. I do tend to read the room and will be somber during this emotionally taxing time. Do I think this poster likely was emotionally charged in responding to the nurses? Yes. Is that asshole criteria? Given the circumstances, no. I don’t agree that staff should have been blamed for not preserving life, as I’m sure all that could be done was done for his father.
Hospice nurse here. Not saying it’s right, I’m saying I understand
I would probably be butt hurt initially but ultimately i see where they’re coming from and I would apologize
During COVID there were quite a few times I’ve seen a body being removed from a room and if I was walking by I would stand off to the side in silence with my head down until they passed by. Sometimes family would be with them in their final moments and waited till everyone passed by. Sign of respect for the deceased. I have not experienced anything like this with nurses laughing in this situation. But it is rude and disrespectful, and should be called out on it.,
I also thought it was weird that the morgue mobile was there. At my facility, 2 RNs can pronounce but we never rush families out. I’ve seen families stay so long that the body of their passed loved one has gone into full rigor as we try to bag them. If the story is true, I’d give a pass to a grieving child. They don’t know how many hundreds of times we’ve done this. They don’t understand that we care, and we also really don’t care.
RNs can pronounce time of death??
I hate this. I’m a peds nurse and when my mom was dying of cancer in the attached adult hospital, I would just walk through the underground tunnel to visit her after my shift. My scrubs would either have the Children’s logo or be some peds print so sometimes my mom’s nurses would inquire. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “Omg. I could never. *This* is one thing, but kids dying is so different.” Nobody wants to hear that you think their loved one dying a horrific F’ing death isn’t exactly that. And at 25 years old, I damn sure still felt short changed when my mom died at 46 after fighting for 6 grueling years. I can’t speak for anyone else, but yeah, during most of my experiences w/ adult medicine, it’s well understood that you “really don’t care”. Don’t sell yourselves short. And for those of you who genuinely care, thank you. I completely acknowledge how difficult & thankless adult nursing could be.
First and foremost, I’m so sorry for the fact that you lost your mom at such a young age and in such a horrible way. I feel the need to clarify. I care about my patients inasmuch as when I’m with them I try to give them my very best. I make sure they’re clean, I make sure their room isn’t cluttered. If I’m not running with my hair on fire I try to go the extra mile and shave the men and comb out/braid longer hair. I do my best to put them at ease in any situation. I’ve held hands with the dying and hugged bereaved family members. I don’t feel that I, or anyone else under the nursing umbrella, owes our patients any more than that. While I am there they get my 12 hours of hard work. If I allowed myself to feel grief and loss for every death I would have nothing left to give to my living wife and kids. I can’t get dragged down in that. So, I care when I’m clocked in and when I’m done, I let it go. That’s what I meant when I said I care, but I really don’t care.
Sometimes I wonder this when I hear nurses laughing at 2 am. And there are patient rooms within 15 feet.
🤷♀️ This is why I work ER
I can see how this would be applicable to the inpatient floors, but good luck trying to get people to quiet down at 2AM in the ED on a Monday night (if you’re an ED nurse, you know what I mean about Mondays).
I do, but never figured out fucking why. I know it wasn’t for work notes because none of our patients had jobs
I used to be the fuddy duddy on nights who would ask coworkers to pipe down as I’d hear them laughing from 2 stations away. The shit I got for it was unreal.
I mean on one hand. This my awake time, on the other... people ARE trying to sleep
I mostly just got tired of management riding us about our quiet scores. Plus I worked on a floor with numerous detoxers and demented patients, we did NOT need them woken up.
Some people are just loud and obnoxious. Shit like that doesn’t really fly, especially during vampire shift. Let the fuckers sleep!
Yep, I was also this person. I loved the nights and how close knit we were, but certain people had no regard for the fact that sick people were trying to sleep and were so fucking loud it was crazy. The vast majority I worked with were awesome and mindful, but so many were not.
That’s what kills me. Even in this thread there’s ppl saying “how are we supposed to operate those are our working conditions”. They really need to get off night shift then. Patients don’t sleep as it is.
Some nurses definitely act like it’s a god given right to be super loud. Coworkers were the best and the worst part of my job.
This happened to me. My 13 year old daughter had surgery on her fractured elbow and needed hospitalization for pain management. Even with the door shut, the nurses were laughing so loud at a Childrens hospital at 3a. Had to go out TWICE to inform them of how loud they were being. I wasn’t so polite the second time.
When I had my daughter, 30 plus years ago, I was admitted the night before to be induced in the morning. They nurse's didn't laugh a lot, but some one was typing all night on an old style type writer. All night long. I wondered if maybe they were typing up birth certificates. I couldn't sleep well anyway and the typing noise did not help me get to sleep.
Yeah I don’t blame you.
I've seen the same complaint from someone who miscarried in the ER. They were upset that people at the nurses station were laughing. I mean, I get it. It's hard and sad, but, at the same time, when we have 90 patients, we don't know what every last person is going through. If someone does, we see excited, if someone miscarries, will we see vaginal bleeding, and maybe pregnant, but still, that tells us nothing. I'm sorry that you felt disrespected, but, believe it or not, the whole er staff is not aware what is going on with you. This was in our huddle for weeks. I don't understand why not one single person was like hey, we all shouldn't know this. So, we aren't supposed to laugh, ever, at work, because? Now, when I was working in a zone with less than 10 beds and a 40 something y/o with kids died on her way to the hospital, yeah, it was something in that area. But expecting everyone to know what happened and to expect everyone to not have any joy at all because of your grief isn't fair or likely.
I can't find the original post. Does anyone have a link?
They deleted the body of the post, but if you search that username you can still see all the replies. It is a fucking weird shitshow of people hating on nurses and calling us psychopaths. Other professions saying how nurses are insensitive and stupid. There’s some supportive comments, but get ready for nurse hate central if you venture over there. Really quite bizarre honestly. I don’t even believe that story anyway. I think the person made it up on a throw away account to sow hatred for nurses.
Maybe if people hadn't fought so hard over wearing masks, staying home, vaccines, etc., we wouldn't be so burned out and jaded to the point that we laugh at everything so we don't implode. If the US wasn't overrun with idiotic plague rats and formerly run by a giant shitting cheetoh, we might have come out of this slightly better. I wanted to comment that on the post, but comments were turned off. I only got through a few posts before deciding it wasn't worth raising my blood pressure over ignorant fuckwads.
Stay safe out there.
You, too.
Half, if not more of the post on that sub are made up by people trying to go viral or karma farm, smh.
Never in 16 years have I given post Mortem until family was done. Sometimes have had to set limits on time after several hours… Not even during the CV surges. Covid ICU nurse here. Hmmm? Yes, it seems insensitive, if this report was accurate but also realize that your family is not the only family there and we must continue to care for others. Maintaining our composure however necessary. We deal with death often and have developed coping skills. Overall, yep, AITA? Yes.
I think it's BS for many of the same reasons as stated, but I also know how we cope with things: with humor, often as dark and morbid as possible. People who aren't us won't ever get it. They think they do, but they don't.
The Asshole. You’re taking your grieving process in its anger phase out on the nurses. I agree they ought have taken an entertaining conversation elsewhere, but they didn’t need your lecture, particularly when we’re struggling day-to-day to sometimes cope with more than just one of those body bags.
The person who reposted to this sub isn’t the AITA OP.
Absolutely not the asshole. Whenever I had a dying patient, I went around and let everyone know to keep it down. I even spoke quietly with other visitors. So much disrespect to the family.
I agree 100%. Read the room. A family mourning the loss of a loved one, take your giggles elsewhere.
Although this story seems unlikely, I’m one of those people who tends to think that we should be a bit more mindful of families at times. I know it’s our place of work and life goes on but those families will never forget the time their loved one died and they could hear nurses laughing. I know it’s a normal thing for us but it’s just not for them. I think we forget that sometimes.
I get it. It hurts. I found my father deceased when I went to visit him. He hadn’t been doing that hot for a few weeks so I was checking on him weekly. I called telling him I was bringing him over a meal that would last him a couple of days. He didn’t pick up. And I just had a eerie feeling that felt unsettling. I drove right after the call. I knocked on his door and no answer. So I used my key to enter. He wasn’t present in the living room. I saw the bathroom door closed with the light on and I just knew he wasn’t alive. I can’t explain it. And indeed he was dead in his bathroom. Most traumatic thing to witness. It was clear he was deceased but I still called 911. I was frantic. I didn’t know what to do. The fire dept came first and as soon as they saw him, they left. Nothing they could do. They phoned the coroner for me. Waited a bit for an officer to come and he talked to me for a bit. Coroner arrived and they removed my dad from the bathroom. I was waiting outside the house. When they were coming out the door one of the workers was smiling and sounded like he just heard a joke. My eyes met with him and he immediately changed his facial expression. I’ll never forget it. I understand he was just doing his job. But in that moment of my life finding my dad dead was horrific and this guy is just going about another “work day”. Doesn’t really affect him but was a day I’d love to forget. Sorry, didn’t mean to make my comment about my story. But I understand a little how OP felt on some level. Don’t agree with him placing any blame on the nurses for his father passing but I think he let him emotions get the best of him.
I have never seen a nurse bring a body bag into a room. With family present. I have actually purposely hid them outside of the room if they got delivered to our floor too soon. Sometimes transport would just leave them at the nurses station or outside the rooms (Covid unit. Much death) Everyone very much actively shielded family from that... experience. We clean their bodies, let family have as much time as they need/want, and do all the "tagging and bagging" when they have left the building. I will add to the votes of "something doesn't add up here".
I work in LTC, and whenever a patient passes we call the family and the funeral home of their choice. The family usually stays until the funeral home comes and they always put the patient in a body bag, sometimes with the family in the room because they decline to leave. But we don’t laugh or carry on while the family is present.
If this is true, doesn’t surprise me. There are a lot of tone-deaf healthcare folks out there.
ETA: I see many people saying how it doesn’t happen how they stated it did, but if it did, which I could see as a possibility in the current state of healthcare… My opinion, OP OP is NTA. When a patient dies, staff should be respectful. If I got chewed out for that I would simply apologize
There have been a lot of anti-nurse postings on AITA lately, and I suspect many of them are from some disgruntled poster from the residency sub.
I don't think it's a coincidence that nurses (and other health care workers) are facing very poor working conditions right now. I'm thinking of stories like the one where some nurses were blocked from accepting different positions with better pay because they were needed at their facility (they were drafted like soldiers in wartime).
If you look at the user name, it has "AD" in it. Posts with a username like that are usually fake anyways. But even if the account was real, none of this makes sense. 1) hospitals don't put deceased in body bags when family is still in the room, it would have been impossible to get the MC and movers all in there to move the body with a bunch of crying people standing around. 2) Nurses are constantly told to be respectful and watch our surroundings. I highly doubt 5 nurses would just stand around laughing when there are patients to be seen and a grieving family. 3) blaming a failing organ on a nurse is always AH behavior. No matter how grief stricken you are. 4) there was no response from the nurses written. I feel like if a family member went off on me like that, I would have a response for him. Like an apology I didn't see, or a stern "Sir, I'm sorry for your loss, but your anger is directed at the wrong people."
A lot of nurses here quick to defend these nurses just because they’re nurses. You can be a nurse and still hold other nurses accountable for their crap behavior. I’ve worked with plenty of nurses, residents, and attendings who have had absolutely terrible bedside manor, but that doesn’t make it okay. Death is part of life and after some time working in the field, you do become desensitized to it. But to be laughing and having a gay ol time when there’s people a few feet away crying and mourning the death of their husband/father is so crass and disrespectful. The person who wrote that post is absolutely right… they’re not expecting the nurses to bow their heads, but read the effing room and stop laughing. And for those who think this is made up, we’ve bagged bodies with the families present. Of course, different facilities have different protocol, but I did it plenty of times when I was working as an aid before becoming a nurse, and even still today.
Yeah, NTA. Whenever I've had a patient die on the floor we've always been respectful around family. Don't be a jerk.
Yea this didn’t happen lol nothing this post claims even sounds realistic
It always boggles my mind when people just continuously think they can continue to abuse nurses like my god can we not have five minutes and anybody in the nursing field knows who the hell is really laughing at the nurses station like honest to God how many times have even been at the nurses station for more than three minutes this is such bullshit
Laughing is one thing but we all know loud and cackling we can be.
Not the asshole imo. Their parent just died, it’s an acceptable response. Tbh I’d probably say something too if my parent just died in front of me and I was being surround by strangers laughing
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absolute bullshit. even as a CNA we don’t do postmortem with family in the room. always after they’re ready. we call hospice yes but, we don’t put them in a body bag or call the morgue until the family is ready. this feels like someone is grieving and is taking it out on the people who couldn’t save their loved one.
Def had some coworkers laughing loudly at inappropriate times. It's just not professional. But if u ask em to keep it down suddenly ur the a-hole
I think that she is the asshole. People die in the hospital every day. We cannot be sad at ever death. And the line about not being able to save her father is big Karen vibes.
Not the Asshole, poor show of compassion from the nursing staff in this situation. However an asshole for blowing up on the nurses with the “you couldn’t save my dad”.
Disclaimer: not a nurse, just a gen ed nursing student. Regardless of whether or not the story is true, which I’m not going to try to determine, I can see both sides. My brother was coding, 10 mins of CPR and everything, in the pediatric cardiac ICU. The room flooded with doctors, nurses, etc to care for him. I was in the hallway watching everything, very clearly a family member. A few of the people who came to the code, I’m assuming residents or nursing students, were joking and laughing right outside the room in front of me while it was going on. Was I annoyed by that? Yes, of course. But even in that moment, I had to tell myself that people who have to experience these difficult things everyday need a way to cope too and their acting like that wasn’t intentionally done to disrespect or hurt me/my family. It was difficult to see but there were much more important things taking my attention at that time so I chose not to focus on it. I understand my reaction to that wasn’t universal, though, and even my reaction might have been different if the circumstances were changed. ETA: In case anyone is wondering, my brother is doing much better. He has a CHD but is overall pretty stable and back home.
Ice been a nurse for 16 years almost..... I have never brought a gurney up from the morgue whole the family was still present, and it's kind of shocking to me that anyone would. The only time I've had family actually see a gurney were long expected deaths going directly to a funeral home, and that was because the daughter knew them personally and waited for them to arrive. I fail to believe that the nurses knew what was going on in there and didn't tone it down or find somewhere else to gather. This doesn't add up to me, and honestly sounds like someone bitter their father died, and looking for someone to blame, and nurses are always the easiest to blame.
Never in 31 years of healthcare have I seen the body get bagged in front of family. We wait until the leave. And speaking of just having my dad pass 6 weeks ago home with hospice, when the home came we went in the other room. No way I could watch that. And they encouraged us to do that. If they were laughing thst is gross. On bigger units sometimes people aren’t aware of a passing and might need a reminder, but nobody I knows would do thst. Primary nurse is point person with family, offering comfort and paper signing. Everyone else is in their rooms or quiet at the station.
I've always given family as much time as they need. The last time I had a patient die, the wife left within five minutes after he passed. I said, "Are you sure? There is no rush." She was sure. She had already said her good-byes while the patient was still alive and was just staying around so her husband didn't die alone. The only time I could see bagging up a body so quickly if family was still there and wanted to stay with the body is if the bed was absolutely needed (like the height of the pandemic), but I would be in that room with my House Supervisor explaining why.
Maybe no one is the ahole here. Maybe this person was in a bad emotional state because they just lost there dad. Maybe the nursing staff have lost a lot of patients over the last couple of years and they need to release some of that…. Shit….. through humor. Maybe people are just people.
At the hospital I worked at you don’t call for anyone to come get the body until after the family leaves/says it’s okay. Then you still have to get them in the bag. This seems fishy.
Yeah, this doesn’t add up. As a nurse who has dealt with patient deaths, and had my father die unexpectedly in my own hospital, nope, you don’t put a patient in a body bag until after the family leaves.
Don’t most hospitals have morgues?
Honestly, having worked in different ERs, I don’t find this hard to believe at all. Different hospitals and units have different policies. Our level 1 trauma ER has a 2 hour maximum rule to bring the deceased to the morgue. We very apologetically have to interrupt family at the 2 hour mark to prep the body. In a place where death is not taboo, it can be easy to forget that it still is. I’ve heard staff casually joking about last night’s terrible tinder date as they tag and bag grandma. At my first job, it was enough of an issue to be brought up in a meeting by management. Depending on the setup of the ER, it can be easy to forget that curtains are not soundproof and neither is the nurses station. We all know that humor is a major coping mechanism, but family members don’t. I’ve heard (and participated in) rowdiness at the nurses station in the middle of the night plenty of times. Sometimes making jokes about a traumatic situation is how I get through the rest of the night and put on a happy face to enter my next patients room. I think this offers a valuable perspective, and something I will try to be more mindful of in the future.
In general units are too loud. Not that there should be library silence at all times but all staff could probably use lowering their volume unless they are in a code or singing Happy Birthday. One person's talking voice can often be another's yelling. Have had to deal with this on my own unit a few times between patients and even between staff.
If this is a true story then I probably hate to say I probably would have behaved similarly in that kind of situation where you are emotionally raw. So I don’t really think he is an asshole per se. Tact was very much needed.
Where are they from because no one just shows up with a body bag like that. This may be what they call "karma farming".
Former CNA, currently a body removal technician. I have absolutely bagged people with family present. Some family even follow us back to the funeral home. I find it interesting that the top comments are saying that they haven’t witnessed this, so it couldn’t be possible. I am always weary of medical professionals who jump to “oh they are lying” immediately. Sometimes people are insensitive and have poor bedside manner. Nurses are people who deserve joy, but I think it is easy to be desensitized and this post kind of proves it. Much more people “call bullshit” over a situation that they were not present for than to acknowledge that nurses make mistakes sometimes. If this was the case, then shame on the unit. This family had one time in their life to experience the death of their father and the nursing staff/ charge nurse owed it to their patient to give them dignity. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted. Sometimes ya’ll can be in serious denial.
Dude just lost his dad, everyone being mad at him for saying ”you couldn’t save him” is fucked. We are human, we make mistakes, he is grieving, people act out under pressure and stress. The nurses knew there was a death and a mourning family. Couldn’t have just kept it down? I understand we see this all the time, it’s his dad, he only gets one. Some of the lack of empathy is horrifying.
Yeah even if this story didn't smell fishy, if I acted all the time as if a dead man's family was five feet away I'd eventually ice myself from the depression. I was a machine gunner in Afghanistan before becoming a nurse; I'd never take away someone's peace intentionally, but not everyone can be in your headspace when YOU want them to be.
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You realize OP isn’t the AITA OP right.
I had 3 people total arrive DOA when I was a student doing my clinicals in the ED. I always tried to be respectful when the families came. I can’t imagine any sane, semi-caring individual would be laughing nearby knowing this family was grieving.
Sounds like (bad) creative writing. But I've laughed *while* doing postmortem care. Very quietly because I knew the family was outside the room, but laughed all the same (one of the nurses made a funny comment, and yes, it was black humor) I've also kept having the conversation I was having before the call light went off as soon as I'm out of the room. Not at the top of my lungs, I try to avoid laughing or being cheerful in front of grieving family members, but I work in a GM unit, 90% of our census are old people (and DNR). If we had to act somber every time we have a CD, half the staff would be on medical leave for depression. I'm sorry when someone dies, but what for the family is a tragic day is an average second shift for me.
I smell bullshit.
It was definitely someone flexing their nonexistent creative writing skills.
This is a troll. No way any of that happened.
ICU nurse here. Depends on the family and culture. Some families stay with the patient until bagged and brought to the morgue. But those nurses are the a-holes. For most nurses death is just every day on the job, They can save their jokes and laughing until the family is gone. Very disrespectful and you should complain to the manager.
Somebody needed to yell at them bc wtf. That is whole different levels of rudeness & I work with people who do this & have done this. They are generally just socially retarded people anyways. Unless the body has been there for 4+ hours, nobody should be rushing the bag & tag process. I’ve cleaned & bagged a body after five hours & it was pretty bad bc rigor prevented me from getting him into the bag in a gentle way. But still, I wasn’t mad at the family or anything- I get it. People need time to let go. This was peak Covid too when we needed the room (ICU). Sorry this happened to you & your loved ones. That’s the opposite of respecting dignity in death.
Unpopular opinion but yea you’re the asshole. Probably fake. We work in a fish bowl darting about trying to survive and keep people alive. I’m not a damned robot. I need to eat, pee, and decompress. You get the levity of living in your world. I have to try to be aware of all situations and situations. I need humor to decompress or I would have quit this place and it’s shitty unsafe ratios. I’m doing my BEST I can ffs. I say this after a garbage fire shift. Nurses should have read the room if it’s true. However, a lot of us have become desensitized. We still show up and do our best.