Nurses - is this right?

My wife's mum is in hospital, she's having a lot of drips put in through cannula's(?) And most of the cannulas seem to be getting put in wrong, by this I mean they miss the vein, and it gets found out when her arm starts swelling, or they (eventually) notice that a drip that was supposed to be finished in 45 mins or so takes a few hours.
She is on her sixth cannula - I just googled that word - in five days and has bruises all over her arms from where they have tried and failed to get even more in. I thought this was supposed to be a pretty simple procedure, I've had a couple and didn't experience anything like this.
She is just getting stabbed all over by these idiots, having a hickman line put in this aftrnoon I can only hope somebody sensible doesn't f**k this one up.

Find a doctor to look and ask? It dosnt sound very good, what sort of damage will it do to her though?

That doesnt sound good at all...How old is your wifes mum? The only reason I could possibly think of is that your step-mum is elderly and therefore the nurses are finding it more difficult to locate her veins.

Id strongly suggest you speak to a doctor about it because it doesnt sound very plesant (not to mention painful). If the doctor isn't around, then ask to speak to the nurse in charge or the highest ranking nurse on the ward

ask the medical staff that are doing it why so many problems

[ophic]

2 possibilities - either they're incompetent (some people are) or your wife's mum has veins that are very difficult to find (some people do).

Get a doctor to explain which of these it is.

[dirtydog]

It can be like that, kitkat had to have 2 canulars put in while she was in labour, the nurses all struggled to get them in and in the end thay called in an anesthesist (sp!) and he needed a fair few goes at getting one in

From experience, I'd rather get a nurse to do it than a doctor!

See Ophics post, but also be aware it may be a training hospital (no excuse for her being a pin-cushion, but everybody has to learn somewhere)

Originally Posted by dirtydog

It can be like that, kitkat had to have 2 canulars put in while she was in labour, the nurses all struggled to get them in and in the end thay called in an anesthesist (sp!) and he needed a fair few goes at getting one in

thats the best way - my mums veins were awful and she also had a hickman line (easier thant cannulas)
though she did say that they best person she ever got to do it was a Sth African dr who was used to doing on black patients ( can't see the veins!!)
I gave up counting how many mum had and how many times her veins collapsed. Ages is a lot to do with it so i got told

I agree that nurses are usually better at doing this than doctors!

There is no excuse for this When you cannulate somebody you get what is called a "flashback" which is a small show of blood into the hub of the cannulae (the needle). This shows that the cannulae is in a vein and in the absence of blood you know it`s not located correctly and should try again. What`s happening is that they`re not siting it correctly and the fluid is leaking into your mother in law`s tissue.

A complication of this is that a condition called "phlebitis" can occur and lead to infection in the area.

I would definitely discuss this with the nurse in charge of the ward and raise your concerns. It could be that your mother in law has very poor venous access (bad veins) which does make it more complicated to site a cannulae but in that case you can ask for an anaethetist or somebody extremely skilled in siting them.

Don`t worry about the insertion of the hickman line... this procedure is only carried out by either specialist doctors (radiologists) or trained radiographers in the X-ray department, using ultrasound and x-rays as guidance and is carried out using local anaesthetic and heavy sedation.

Well I've asked a few nurses, and a couple of doctors and they all said it's pretty bad, but mainly due to her being about 60 and having almost invisible veins. The bruising is because her blood is knackered and can't clot.
Hickman line went in pretty nicely, I think she's quite proud of it. was carping herself before the op but walked back to her room very happily!

And like simesb says, it is a training hospital, not nice but people got to learn somewhere.

Cheers for all your help people.