Communication barrier!

As a nurse, working on a Continuing Care unit where a large percentage of patients awaiting placement to nursing homes, I deal with communication barriers every shift. One example would be, when I had a patient who was dependant on hearing aids for both ears and one of the hearing aid batteries ran out. This patient became very distraught and stated that she could not hear anything without them. I decided to phone the patients family, who informed me that they could bring in batteries but not for a couple of days. When I told the patient about this, the patient became even more upset. So I sat with this patient for a while until she calmed down. As a result of this I was put behind in my workload. In today's nursing world one has more jobs to do and less time to do it in. I wish that I could have spent more time with this patient, to ease her anxiety and feelings of isolation. Other forms of comunication could have been used for example, note pads or picture boards. I would also like to see back up batteries readily available to avoid this in future.