Pee Flinger

Like so many of our elderly patients, except for a broken hip, he was fine when he came into the hospital. Now, he was a raving lunatic. Drugs tend to do that in the elderly. This is common and not really blog-worthy, except for the creativity this patient showed.

Most confused people just scream, chant and pull all of their clothes off. This guy took it up a notch by grabbing his IV pole and swinging it like a golf club. He knocked an information board off the wall which broke when it hit the floor. That cost us over $200. He also pulled down the curtains.

The most entertaining thing he did, though, was pee in his urinal container and then fling it at his roommate, splashing him with pee. The confused man is now in restraints and no longer has a roommate.

That did lead to an argument last night when the supervisor wanted to put another confused patient in that room. I didn't think that even a confused non-verbal person should have to be in a room with a pee-flinger, but the supervisor didn't see the problem. I won, but still I wonder about some people.

Even though the pee-flinger was in restraints, they are usually released when the patient is behaving and then put back on when not behaving. Do we really want other patients to be in the path of flying urine?