Being investigated for a patient the nurse didn't even treat

[angeloublue22]

This is such a weird situation and I just wanted to know if anyone has experienced this before. I can't give a ton of information for privacy sake. I work in a chemical dependency unit. We had a patient who was extremely rude and ended up leaving through a window to buy cigarettes, not mention many other concerning behaviors. We gave him his belongings when we found him on the street and he stated he didn't want to come back. Anyway, his family is very codependent and stated that we gave him pneumonia somehow and they wanted to start an investigation of one of the nurses. the nurse she chose to start an investigation on was the nurse she talked to on the phone the next day who didn't even meet the patient. We all thought, because most of us have been told by irate patients that they will come after use, that it would go no where. Our internal company investigated and found no fault. The nursing board got involved and after they gathered all the information called the nurse and stated that they knew the nurse had nothing to do with the patient but decided to move on with the investigation away? Really? This has taken time from this nurse and stressed her out to no end but they are still going to continue with an investigation? I've never heard of this.

I'm trying to tell her to keep her head up and hopefully is will work out but I'm so flabbergasted that they are even pursuing this, I don't know what to say. I did tell her to get a lawyer.

[angeloublue22, BSN, RN]

Yes, they tried to include another nurse who had very limited interaction with the patient as well, but they eventually dropped the investigation because the client and family stopped communicating with them which is very common in addictions.