I was in charge last night. Received a phone call from the computer room to check one of the patient's charts to stamp a report as "permanent record." So I was standing outside of the patient's room and the nurse was in the room, not knowing I was right outside the door flipping through the chart.
Patient had pulled off his bipap machine, apparently. I hear the nurse say "Look what you've done. You're an As*h***. I'm through playing your f****** games." I'm aghast. I go to the doorway and say "I know he's a difficult patient but that's not appropriate!" She just starts saying "Look at his bipap! He broke it! Isn't this broken?!" Doesn't address my comment at all. I go in, fix the bipap mask and help her reapply it. And that's that.
I then walk out and write down verbatim what happened. We've had problems with her before. Give it to my manager in the morning and am called into the office with this nurse. She flat-out denies saying it. She was not angry, just seemed very apologetic with statements like "I'm sorry, I don't know HOW you heard that; I never said anything like that. I don't remember you saying anything to me."
I did do the right thing, didn't I?! (Manager believes me, by the way. But can she act on anything, if the nurse flat-out denies it happening? There were no other witnesses. Pt's mental state is uncertain.)
