Are nurses injecting incorrectly?
This week’s interesting video comes from Western Polytech Hospital in America, where hundreds of people recently lined up for flu vaccinations in a makeshift clinic.
What’s interesting about it is that a news story on the clinic sparked some calls from nurse viewers, who were concerned about the injection techniques displayed & queried whether or not in some cases the correct vaccine dose was even being administered.
Watch the video below:
Click to view video if unable to view correctly.
Performing injections correctly takes a bit of practice, and clearly the video shows some pretty sloppy injection techniques. A spokesperson for the clinic stated the injections were performed by RN’s, LPN’s and Physicians.
Having been fairly closely involved with Australian nursing students over the years, personally I’d have to say that their injection techniques in general are of a fairly consistently high standard. Which begs the question – why are the people in the video slackening off? Are they simply not well trained, or is it the repetition of mass injections causing people to slacken off by the time they perform hundreds of injections back to back? Would we expect to see a certain percentage of sloppy injection techniques like this in our mass vaccination clinics also?
Wow. Those injections are beyond sloppy. I would imagine not only are the patients getting half the dose, pushing the plunger through dermal and subcutaneous tissue wouldn’t be the most pleasant of experiences. As well as that, I wouldn’t like to have a needle wobbling around in my arm like that (which is why we were taught to hold the needle in place with one hand and press the plunger with the other). Also, I thought the injection site was stretched rather than pinched for IM injections, which apparently also makes it less painful for the patient. I’m pretty appalled that health officials would stand by these techniques.
As a nursing student I think that I’m a lot more careful about my injection technique, and take my time doing it, as I don’t want to cause harm to the patient. I hope that when I am finished my degree, I am more experienced, but just as careful.
Hi Katy, thanks for posting
It definitely looks like in some of the cases there’s vaccine squirting off into the sunset! I don’t believe there’s any need to pinch up for IM injections also, particularly in the deltoid.