Ethical dilemma: Administrator as my new patient

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Recently, the administrator at the nursing home to which I work has been admitted as my patient. Ethical concerns developed when the patient's daughter (it is a family owned facility) assumed the responsibility as the acting administrator and assigned herself as his POA. The patient stated to me that he has no POA and if he did assign one, it would be someone other than her because she impedes his care especially concerning his pain management. I charted these statements in his handwritten chart after discussing the concerns at his bedside with the member of his family that he stated he wanted as his POA. When I returned to work a couple of days later, I was reassigned to a new unit and received a write-up from the DON. The DON stated that I did nothing wrong and insisted on writing me up b/c the administrator was threatening to fire her!!! The write-up states that I failed to document information relevant to a patient's health status and violated Standards of Practice for Registered Nurse. I also learned that they removed my documentation about said patient from his chart and destroyed it. I am so angry and I am scared that the administrator will try to do something like report this to the BON. I contacted an attorney and she advised me to not return to work there. Anybody out there deal with something similar to this?

+ Add a Comment