Med Errors vs being "slow"?

[sasha2lady]

there is a nurse who works on the 12 hr day shift who at best, is slow with her work....this is the thing though...every night we come in on nights and she openly tells us that she "Just gave" her pm meds...meaning all the pm's that range from after lunch to 5pm.....we come in at 7p. We have alot of pts that get hs lantus, and other insulins...plus other hs meds like narcotics etc.....which some of it...she just gave when it was due at 2pm...for example someone on scheduled darvocet gets it tid @ 6am, 1pm, & 8pm....she will give that 1pm dose at 630pm..which means we cant give ours....or the insulins because it drops all the blood sugars. We have reported this to the DON with only the response "you know how slow she is". yet...she can stop who knows how many times during the day on med passes to go smoke or flirt with the guys in maint. .....I dont get it..nothing has been said or done....we feel like our licenses are at risk because of the potential of double dosing on certain meds. she only has 3 charts to chart on and 20 residents to medicate. NO txs to do or anything.....none of us on nights want to work behind her because shes not safe, we only halfway know what she gave hours late...and thats b/c we ask her, if not for that shed walk right out and never tell us.....yet at the same time, she goes out to smoke when we come in and we are ready for report...we HAVE to start our hs med pass by 720....it takes over 4 hours to do it because we have 2 halls each on 7p to7a. Days gets a nurse per hall x 4 plus a tx aide and a charge nurse. We are sick of coming in to a mess and instability. I for one absolutely refuse to work behind her but the mgmt is starting to put her on the unit i normally work..I do NOT want to work behind her for I know that if I had to do it night after night Id flip on her. I dont understand why the DON wont do anything about this? its just brushed under the rug..sooooo since the DON doesnt care to address it, how should us nurses handle it ? The last thing I want to do is show how ill tempered I can be but my God, I worked too hard to get my license & if its ever put at risk I want it to be because of my own failure, not someone elses. This is an extremely UNSAFE nurse. None of us are sure of what to do exactly at this point. If we keep reporting it, which we all have several times, its never addressed. We cant force mgmt to take action. Whats our next option here?

[ivorybunny]

I completely understand what you are going through. I've been working in the same place for 6 years now- and for that entire time we've always had one RN that comes in every day for her shift late. We are suppose to be ready for report at 645- she doesn't come in until 0710- and then it takes 45mins-1 hour for report. We have only 6 patients, and after working 12 hours, I want to go home. She always stays late too- she sometimes doesn't leave until 8-9. Everytime these concerns are brought up, the answer is... "You know how she is- and she's such a good nurse" Hope things get better for you!

[POTR]

Sounds like med errors and falsification of patient documentation (fraud) to cover up same.

See if you can get anyone up the chain to show up at report time, and ask pointed questions about the notes.

If a supervisor "doesn't have time" to show up or "wait forever" for this Nurse, then point out that because you are involved directly with your patients' care, your time is even more important.

If you can manage to get a supervisor to show up for report, and get one (on time or not), make sure you let Nurse Faulty know that you aren't going to take 'updates' on the report after the supv leaves. IE: no coming back to say she didn't give the meds when she said she did. Hopefully she may have some remnant of responsibility for her patient's safety remaining.