TL;DR Home care nurse, mom is diluting Ativan, need advice.
Hello,
I’m a private duty LPN for a local pediatric hospital. I’ve been a nurse for years now so it’s nothing new.
Onward,
I’ve been coming to a home for awhile now, the child has hx of seizures and muscle rigidity. They’re given Ativan concentrate routinely, this is the primary method of seizure control. There is “known” diversion going on. It’s suspected mom dilutes (you read that right) her Ativan and leaves diluted ass medication for her disabled kid. Humanity.
Several of us have notified our respective supervisors, we were given the ******** advice to “document your findings” but not say that directly. I was asked to write a statement, in which I declined bc I’ve been burned in situations like these before.
The medication is dispensed 10-12 bottles at a time. Cyclically the child will start having a shit ton of seizures, and the medication will have a watery consistency. There are other “backup” meds to be given PRN but they’re not as effective.
Today I noticed the same watery bottle, so I looked at the three remaining bottles and the tamper seal is white, indicating they’ve been opened. They also were watery, not like the usual viscous Ativan.
My questions: I’m stumped bc giving a known altered drug seems like a huge liability. The kid is a few clusters from a grand mal that would do some damage. We’ve already told management who is apathetic and loose lipped, so any reports goes to this one senior RN who’s very tight with the mom. Again I’ve been used as the scapegoat and pissed on by management when they’ve ignored diversion, and it was discovered and they had to address it (hope that makes sense)
Any advice or input? I thought of contacting our in-house attorneys and asking. I’m just torn as if any of this **** hits the fan, we all know this has been tampered with, and hello, liability.
