My son lives at a residential care facility, which provides meds administration. Most of the residents receive care from the area mental health center, and receive their shots there, but he has a private pdoc who we like. The director of the residence is the only person there licensed to administer shots, and she reluctantly agreed to give my son his shots.
My son said yesterday he wasn’t feeling right, maybe it was because he hasn’t had a shot in a while. I said, you had one last week, he said, no, I didn’t. In I went - his shot from LAST WEEK (he is supposed to get it every other week) was sitting in their med fridge.
The med tech called the director, she started giving excuses as to why she hadn’t done it, none of which hold any water. Over a week late on a shot to be given every two weeks!
Just like a nursing home you have to visit often and make sure the staff knows you are watching.
You have to make sure they are giving meds on schedule and only then can you trust them.
That is hugely aggravating and completely unprofessional. Why doesn’t she want to give your son his shots? Is there a higher authority who can help you sort this woman out?
Is she like this with all the patients? If she has some personal thing against meds that could be a problem.
I hope your son gets his shots on time from now on and feels better. This could be so damaging. They want us to be med compliant and then they don’t give us the meds. What a no win situation.
Definitely aggravating. Hopefully they won’t make that mistake again.
I know I have gotten a little upset when I have had to correct my son’s pdoc when writing prescriptions wrong, fix blood work requisitions and help some offices fill out forms as they were doing it wrong and explain why it needs to be done this way… I remind myself that they are all human too and unfortunately mistakes will happen.
Regardless of this though she should have taken responsibility for her mistake as it is her mistake and the consequences could have been a lot worse especially if you had not caught it when you did.
I don’t know what her objection is to giving the shots. But she agreed to do it, and that is what matters to me. She is one of the administrators of the residence. I have placed a call to my son’s case manager, and am waiting to see what she says. From the few conversations I have had with her (she was just recently assigned to my son), she, and others at the community mental health center are not overly impressed with this director - but it is the only RCF in that area.
One of her ‘excuses’ was that my son was at the doctor. Well, no he was not. In fact, the day before the shot was to be given, I picked him up to take him to a dentist appointment, saw the director and asked if he was on schedule to get the shot the next day. She said yes. I didn’t think I would need to remind her again. It is her JOB!
I find this very scary. What if it had been insulin or some other life threatening shot he was supposed to get. I would definitely talk to the higher ups, what if she “forgets” again?
omg I can’t believe that happened. There is just absolutely no excuse for that! Thank goodness you are on top of the situation. Hope your son gets to feeling better quickly.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the missed dose…sure once he gets it in his system again, he wont notice any difference. I personally have schizophrenia and I miss doses a lot but never have any trouble regaining my position.
Just a single day dose wouldn’t have been so bad, but a shot that is received once every 2 weeks - not so good.
I am proud of my son, that he mentioned something, that he wants to get the shot, that today he checked right away on when the person was coming in so that he could get it.
It was hard to watch my son’s psychosis worsen the last couple of days. I think his med levels probably dipped too low. We were out for breakfast yesterday, and he was talking fairly directly with me, and then he turned his head to the side and grimaced. I even asked, “Are you okay?”, because he looked like he was experiencing pain. Then his voice changed, and his gaze drifted away from me, and he started voicing some of his violent ideations and delusional thoughts. He was clearly no longer talking with me. He grimaced repeatedly. I could not redirect him, and finally got the check as quickly as I could and walked him out of the restaurant. He kept trying to address “the people” he said. He got his shot on Friday, and I only hope his troubling thoughts will soon subside again.
Well. I was not planning to report any of this, for fear of retaliation. However, the director of the residence chose to use my son’s behavior during decompensation as a reason to give him a 30 day discharge notice.
I am so sorry this director is just… so horrid. I am glad your going to file a report and get to the bottom of this. It just kills me too that a nurse isn’t “Licensed” to give this particular shot despite that fact that nurses give 1,000 of shots in their life time.
I am hoping the best for your son. I’m sorry you have to go through this silliness just because this director has an issue.