[fetch33]

Law enforcement personel are the only ones permitted to carry weapons into the hospital. However, in my 21 years of experience, I have had two incidents happen. One night all was quiet at the nurses station. We suddenly heard a noise like a locker door slamming. Since we didn't have lockers anywhere, we all jumped up to look for the patient that hit the floor with an IV pole.... the only thing that made sense. While frantically running around looking for the patient on the floor, a code was called. Turns out a patient on our sister unit around the corner had just commited suicide. He was a dialysis patient who had decided he'd had enough and wanted to kill himself in the hospital so his family wouldn't have to find his body. He announced this to his roommate who was frantically pushing the call button while the patient was getting his gun out of the closet. Poor roommate actually flipped himself over the bedrails and got under the bed thinking the guy might want to take someone out with him (fresh appy too). The next incident involved a paranoid paraplegic. His nurse came out of the room and called security. She had seen the patient slip a pearl-handled knife under the mattress as she was walking into the room. Security was called and we waited in the nurses station while they searched the room. Imagine our surprise when the guard came into the station and laid a GUN on the desk. We about fell out of our chairs. The kicker was THEY NEVER FOUND THE KNIFE!!!!!!

[canoehead]

This is not a Canada vrs USA gun laws thread, can we please stick to the topic.

[rjflyn]

Actually I just found this post and another issue acutally comes up. The patient is being admitted of addicition to drugs. This according to US federal law precludes one from owning/ purchasing a firearm. See Form ATF F 4473 #12 c. So actually he is commiting a crime and I believe HIPPA has a clause that covers notification of lawenforcement of crimes.

R