Is it legal for a hospital to deny help to a patient getting in and out of bed-making them wait for the fire dept to come do it?

lol, what???? where is that?

I'll go work there!!!

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I think the fire department has better things to do. They can call an orderly to help a patient not a non employee from outside the hospital. I'd tell them to show me the policy!

You'd think their liability insurance wouldn't allow someone from outside the hospital to touch a patient. The city/county insurance wouldn't want the liability problem either! This is just too funny.

I've heard of PATIENTS in the hospital calling 9-1-1, because the nurse doesn't respond quickly enough....the patient wants to go to the bathroom, or wants another pudding, or drops the tv remote and calls 911....but for the HOSPITAL to say it's going to call the fire dept? That is hysterical!

DH was on that call. Right after he left work. The lady (morbidly obese, I guess) needed to do something, so the fire dept was toned out. He came home (we live a minute away from the hospital), ate his hot dogs and potatoes, and was toned out again. He came back home, said that she was left in her wheelchair by the nurses. The fire chief questioned why they were called, and that was the reason they gave! This hospital also has no dr's that can reset broken bones, no maternity ward, an u/s machine (brand new!) That messed up finding 2 babies, and ob's that push 1st trimester d&c's for unconfirmed problems (basically pushing abortions on wanting mothers)

WHAT DRUGS ARE THEY TAKEING ? L.O.L !

Wow that sounds like the most horrible hospital ever. Most equipped hospitals have special lifts to assist with getting obese patients in and out of bed. I work in the nursing home industry, and I've seen the nurses use them all the time. They do have to be very careful because they can easily get injured, but I've never heard of them calling the fire department. What a waste of resources!

I don't think a hospital can but a lot of nursing homes are instituting a no lift policy. The nursing home my grandmother is at has a no lift policy. I think it is more to insure that the resident doesn't have an injury that can be made worse by moving them than the nurse getting hurt. I also work with Alzheimer's patients and we can not lift them if they fall, we have to call 911 and have them transported to the hospital to be checked for injuries.

So the fire department can be sued? Because they can drop the patients, too. They should have mechanical lifts. But, they had other equipment that was mucked up, too. Where is this hospital?