These 3 important tips from the short-term care nurse are essential for parents to know!
What? Chantal from EHBO Bureau is shadowing for an evening
Where? General Practitioner Post Zaanstreek-Waterland
With whom? Short-term care nurse: Daniëlle Hardebol
How does it work at the General Practitioner Post?
The General Practitioner Post (HAP) is for patients with medical complaints that cannot wait until the next working day with their own doctor. From 5:00 PM until the next morning and throughout the weekend, you can contact them.
The General Practitioner Post operates with a team of professionals. This team tonight consists of a short-term care nurse, a general practitioner, a supervising doctor, triage assistants, and a GP post driver. All these people are ready to help you. It is also convenient that the Emergency Department is in the same wing as the HAP. This way, they are literally in close connection with each other and can easily ask for advice or refer.
What if you have a complaint that cannot wait?
As a patient, you call the General Practitioner Post and get one of the triage assistants on the line. They assess, based on a protocol, the urgency of the patient's complaints. If there is a certain level of urgency, the patient gets an appointment with the short-term care nurse or a general practitioner who conducts the consultation with the patients. They assess the complaints, act if necessary, refer, and give advice.
The supervising doctor checks the work of the triage assistants and the short-term care nurse and general practitioner and adjusts where necessary. The GP post driver visits people at home who cannot come to the HAP themselves.
Safety net
Seeing it all in action makes me quite happy. This system is well put together. Where one person might overlook something, another looks over and gives advice. It also struck me that the HAP is not only a safety net for detecting and treating a fracture or bruise, but also dares to address broader issues such as suspected child abuse or family overload.
The consultation
As an intern, I am allowed to observe during the consultation and I see all sorts of things:
– Two cuts (from a sander and a can of tomatoes)
– A loose toenail in a 5-year-old girl (from an Ikea chair that fell on it)
– 5 bruises (hand/foot/thumb)
– 1 fracture (foot)
I found it to be a busy evening, the short-term care nurse thought it was manageable.
Causes
The causes of the bruises and fractures were mostly due to falls. For example, during skiing, on the trampoline, from the couch.
But also due to an accident, such as overlooking a post you bump into, or hitting your arm against a bed rail during a play fight.
When I ask Daniëlle about the accidents with young children she often sees, they are mainly: bicycle accidents (wrist injuries), fingers caught in doors,
falls from trampolines, falls down stairs, burns, and beads in the nose.
What could we as laypeople learn from this consultation?
I see that Daniëlle, with her medical background and work experience, can quickly assess what is wrong. Some things she pays attention to with a possible bruise or fracture are:
- Misalignment: hold both arms/both legs/both fingers next to each other and look carefully if it is just swollen, or if it is really positioned differently compared to the other limb.
– Circulation: is the circulation still good? You check this by pressing on the fingertip. If it stays white for a long time (does not quickly return to red) then the circulation is not good.
– Movement: can the affected limb still move well
You can of course check this yourself, but definitely go to the HAP if something like this happens to your child. It is reassuring to know for sure, and otherwise, an X-ray will be taken.
What would you like to convey to parents through the work you do and encounter?
I ask Daniëlle what she would like to convey to parents through what she sees and experiences as a nurse at the HAP. She quickly lists the following:
1. Pay attention to unusual behavior in the child. And ask yourself if it makes sense that your child could have broken or bruised something (common sense)
2. Is the child consolable or not?
3. Use your parental instinct
Unusual behavior
Especially look at the behavior in children. For example, with a leg fracture. Do they use the leg? Or do they lift it while walking? Do they suddenly only play with one hand? These are all clues. In addition, a bit of common sense is also handy. Ask yourself: Is it logical that the child could break a leg from this fall?
Consolable
A child is generally consolable. If not, this is an alarming signal.
Instinct
Use your parental instinct. You know your child best. Even if you don't know why your feeling says something different than the doctor. Mention it and make sure it is checked.