Oxygen Therapy

Oxygen Therapy

Hi everyone. This week I am reflecting back on my Cardio placement and a reoccurring problem that I encountered. My placement was on the general surgery ward so I saw a lot of abdominal surgeries. I learned thorough my placement that it was protocol that any one on a PCA was required to be on min 2L of O2 until they were taken off the PCA. Now what I found was that patients were not compliant with this, but what I found more surprising was that neither were the nurses!! My supervisor had very strong feelings abut this issue and insistent that we were not allowed to get anyone out of bed (with a PCA) unless they had their O2 on. I would consistently walk into a patient’s room and their O2 would be off. I would then have to proceed and give them the explanation about why it was important to have O2 (lung infection, air to bottom of lungs…etc) and what I found was their common response was “the nurse said I didn’t have to have it on”. What is a physio student to do?? Obviously the patient is going to listen to what the nurse says instead of me, even though you explain all the risks to them. They would put the O2 on to make you happy but when you walked in there later on in the day, it was off again!! I approached several nurses and told them that it was protocol and the patient required O2 while on PCA but they just seemed to disregard this fact. So tell me this, what is the point of having protocols in place if staff are not going to follow them? Even if you look at it from the patient’s point of view, it would be frustrating to have one person come in and tell you that you needed to have O2 and then someone else tell you you didn’t. I feel that it reflects badly on the hospital and makes its staff look unorganised and incompetent. Has anyone else encountered this problem on their cardio prac?