UCI Medical Center has fired 13 nurses

Holy moly!!! This isn't good!


But back to the OT-I can't believe that 2 of the nurses fired had worked there for 20 years! Unbelievable!

...The most recent dismissal was of a nurse who worked in the newborn nursery for 27 years, said Beth Kean, the California Nurse Assn. director for University of California hospitals.

She was fired Oct. 23, shortly after determining that vaccinations in the baby area were adult dosages. She worked with the hospital pharmacy to dilute the medicine and administered it to a baby, Kean said.

The nurse was fired because she wrote too much information about the incident in the patient chart, Kean said. The nurse has filed a grievance to try to get her job back, Kean said.

"You don't take away someone's livelihood for a minor infraction," said Catherine Montgomery, a nurse in the psychiatry department, where two nurses were fired.

Nurse Lilliam Triana said that when she asked questions about the most recent firing, she was suspended with pay for a day last week. She returned to work Monday, but an investigation is continuing, union officials said.

"I love my job, and I missed not being there," Triana said. "This is my profession and my love. But I feel like I'm under a huge microscope. A lot of us have felt like that for quite some time. I feel very tense and nervous, but I have done nothing wrong."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...ck=1&cset=true

Obviously we don't have the full story here.

But why on God's green earth would a nurse with 27 years' experience alter an adult vaccine (with or without pharmacy's guidance) and administer it to a newborn?

Yeah, I was surprised at that revelation.

Full story would be nice . . .

steph

RNs Blast UC Irvine Med Center For Firings, Suspensions - Nurses Say UCI Targeting RNs In Response To Its Scandals

The scandal-ridden University of California Irvine Medical Center has fired 13 registered nurses and now put a key nurse leader on investigatory leave for standing up for her colleagues, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee said recently.

CNA/NNOC demanded the hospital reverse the firings and suspensions, end its campaign of harassment of nurses, and allow nurses to perform their critical role as patient advocates without fear of intimidation or threats.

In the past four months, UCI has engaged in what Beth Kean, UC division director for CNA/NNOC calls a "firing frenzy" - firing more RNs than all the other medical centers combined, even though UCI is the smallest hospital in the UC system.

All were fired for at most minor technical infractions or errors in judgment that did not affect patients. Many were veteran UCI RNs with many years of experience.

Then this week, UCI put a key nurse leader, Lilliam Triana, RN, on investigatory leave for investigating one of the terminations, a case where one of Triana's colleagues was fired after she reported a serious medication problem in the UCI newborn nursery....

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/87118.php

they will keep hunting and hunting and find something when they want to get rid of somebody

Exactomondo.

Sounds to me like the baby nurse saved countless overdoses and medication errors to newborn baby's. True we don't have the full story on this or the other 12 nurses fired, BUT
Instead of praising her for finding the gross error, they fired her for publicizing in the patients record . Though that is inappropriate. The outrage and shame placed on UCI is justified because they have proved by these firings they are more concerned about HIDING THEIR ERRORS instead of preserving public safety.

Remind me never to take a contract with this facility!!!! Sounds like a bad place to work.