So this all starts on my first night where I get a patient who is very verbally abusive to me and to my tech. I go to the floor supervisor and explain that I refuse to be verbally assaulted so she went in to the room and talked with the patient. Afterwards I am told that patient is in anger stage of diagnosis and that the rest of the night should be fine. Nope, patient refuses to look at me or talk to me and when he does it's very condecending and hateful. I make request not to have patient on that nights assignment.
Night two I come in and have the exact same assignment. I mention the conflict and am told the exact same thing, patient is in anger stage. Patient again very verbally abusive so I ask to have someone else take this patient. Current charge nurse tries to switch my assignment however supervisor switches it back and states patient is my responsibility and that the patient actully likes me. Ummmmm.......no the patient doesn't. Pt remains condecending and hateful for remainder of shift. The other nurse I am working with goes to our supervisor and explains how difficult my assignment is (I was unaware that she did this at the time) and that it needs to be split. I go to the supervisor and ask to please not have this patient on my assignment for a third night.
Night Three, exact same assignment I am miserable but at this time I was like what is the point of arguing no one really gives a damn anyway. Patient has life threatening complications I get the charge nurse and we call the emergency response (MET)team. Lucky for me and my other patients I work with really awesome nurses who helped pass my meds and do patient care while I was in with this situation. During the MET call the doctor and ICU nurse witness the way that I am treated but it is now being blamed on the current situation. Patient ends up remaining on our floor and I continue care. I go in to follow some new orders the doctor gave and patient grabs my arm in a death grip and starts twisting all the while he is screaming at me and hitting me with his other hand. Another nurse comes running in because she heres him yelling at me and gets the patient off of me. I leave the room and immediately burst into uncontrollable sobs.
The house supervisor now gets called by the nurse I am working with and becomes involved. I am given the option to give up the patient. Now mind you it is 2 in the morning and there is a great chance this patient will crash before the next shift. I said due to the circumstances I would remain this patients primary nurse but I refused to go into the room without someone else. It was agreed that this was an acceptable solution. Unfortunately I was the only person who responded when he tried to get out of bed and the alarm went off. As I am trying to get him back in bed he is hitting and pinching and slapping me not to mention we are standing in a large puddle of water at the time.
I cried all the way home and for most of the day yesterday. I have bruises all over me and I am sore where he hit me. I don't think this was acceptable and could have been avoided. My concerns weren't taken seriously. I understand he was in the anger stage but what makes it right for all his anger to be taken out on me, and for 3 consecutive nights? If you made it through this entire post Thank you. I'm just so upset and depressed over this, it makes me hate my job.
Reports have been filed by myself and one of the other nurses I was working with. I will have dh take pictures of the bruises tonight and i will have them documented by employee health tommorrow prior to my shift starting. I plan on filing a complaint with the hospital. I am hoping to find another position as I have applications out as we speak. I have a contract with this hospital that I am hoping they will let me out of, if not I will be paying back whatever I have to just to get out. Thank you everyone for your kind words and support, it means more than you can imagine.
Specializes in Neuro/ Tele;home health; Neuro ICU.
make sure you documented and/ or document everything what happened during that nights of care for this patient. even at home, do some notes for yourself step by step from night one to three. get to ED or you PCP and get done your physical completed. make incident report, try to go thru chain of command if talking to your charge nurse and house supervisor did not help.
no one has right to abuse you and if this happens you have right to look for support and avoid this situation by not taking this pt under your care, esp. when he/she is AOx4. because pt was in agression stage does not mean he had right to hurt you after you and other nurses talk to him and semms he understood asking to stop this behavior.
i also would consider looking for some other place of employmeny as some other posters said employee does not seems to take safety of employees to consideration. you are pretty new to nursing (1 year) so it may leave bad memories for you, i would talk to EAP or someone you can trust and let go emotions / memories so you may start to feel again safe and comfortable at your work. best luck!!!
Don't break your contract. Then you lose and pay the price, when you are the only one in this drama who didn't do anything wrong.
Instead what you should do is 1) document your injuries, 2) press criminal charges against the patient (yourself, not through the hospital), 3) contact a lawyer.
You get your injuries documented so that management can't downplay what happened.
You file criminal charges against the patient, first because he's a scumbag who deserves to be arrested and second because you want to have the initiative. If he were to sue the hospital (and/or you) and you came back with "but he assaulted me" it would be less plausible than if you contacted the police first. Oh, and don't even talk to the hospital about the police - it isn't any of their business. They will try to tell you otherwise, but you're the victim of a crime, and the fact that it happened at work doesn't give your employer any right to control whether or not you press charges.
You contact the lawyer so that you can leave that place on your own terms. Most hospitals don't give a rat's a$$ about an injured worker, but the phrase "attorney at law" ALWAYS seems to get their attention. I doubt that you'd be able to sue the hospital successfully, but they would more than likely be willing to waive your contract just to put the situation to rest.
BloomGirl
8 Posts
Reports have been filed by myself and one of the other nurses I was working with. I will have dh take pictures of the bruises tonight and i will have them documented by employee health tommorrow prior to my shift starting. I plan on filing a complaint with the hospital. I am hoping to find another position as I have applications out as we speak. I have a contract with this hospital that I am hoping they will let me out of, if not I will be paying back whatever I have to just to get out. Thank you everyone for your kind words and support, it means more than you can imagine.