Can’t a nurse be fired?

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Can’t a nurse be fired if she didn’t initiate CPR on a full code that looked to have been dead for awhile

Specializes in Critical Care.

Sounds like. That’s one of my few veterans benefits I do NOT use. The care those veterans get is shameful.

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I actually thought that you were a VA nurse when you mentioned combat vets. VA provides excellent medical and nursing care.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Not the experience I had. I gave up on using the VA. It sounds pretty hit or miss.

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On 1/9/2020 at 10:30 AM, ArmyRntoMD said:

What negligence.. sickening. We see terrible stuff from nursing homes. We send them out, no decubitus. They come back months later, stage 4.

if you have family in a NH, you better he checking on them, because they most likely won’t be.

This is somewhat exaggerated.

And I have had more than one pt come back to the NH from the hospital with new pressure sores. So it definitely works both ways.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Not based on what I’ve seen coming back from nursing homes. Some are definitely better, but some are disgusting. We looked around a good while before we put my grandma in one.

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I wish OP would clarify what she is talking about.

This is really annoying.

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Specializes in Med-surg, telemetry, oncology.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've heard this brought up. Especially when you have nurses or CNAs not rounding on patients (or residents if we're talking LTC)...for example, if your CNA is in charge of rounding during even hours and nurses are assigned odd hours...well, if someone skips their rounding, then one or the other could easily find a deceased patient.

Always round on your people. Better to call a rapid response than have to make the decision to initiate CPR or withhold it.

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Hm. Get fired for not doing CPR doesn't make sense. Someone wasn't checking on him or her.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

If I found a deceased person who was in rigor mortis, I wouldn't start CPR. That's an obvious sign of death. The bigger question is if I had any legal/moral obligation to that person in the first place. If I'm out in public and I find such a person, my obligation (if any) is to call it in and report what I found. If it's someone that's a patient of mine, then it becomes an issue of whether I was providing adequate observation/rounding. If the patient has been adequately rounded on (per orders/protocol/whatever) and the patient died and became so obviously dead that CPR wasn't to be administered, then so be it.

If facility protocol requires that ALL DEAD PERSONS have CPR initiated absent a DNR order, then ALL DEAD PERSONS will receive CPR, even if they're rotting... Some facilities have protocols written in such a manner that all employees are determined to be colossally stupid and unable to determine whether or not someone is actually and irreversibly dead. Violate the rules and you get disciplined for violating the rules and not necessarily for starting CPR when it's clearly unwarranted.

If I were working at a place where they required that all non-DNR people that had died receive CPR and I found someone that was clearly dead, I would still start CPR because that's the facility rules and let the on-duty emergency responders determine death. While I haven't worked for such an entity (either in the field or in hospital), I have lost count of the number of times I've had to inform a provider that an automated alert has "fired" and I'm required by rule to inform the provider of the alert... when we BOTH know that the patient actually doesn't fall under the reason for the alert and doing actions the alert prescribes is inappropriate or we've already been treating for the underlying condition and the alert "fired" late into therapy.

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Specializes in Emergency.
On 1/8/2020 at 9:18 PM, Barbara Fouch Lentz said:

Three nurses were suspended because they didn’t start CPR on a woman who was found unresponsive slumped over her chair. She was gray bloated no pulse no respiration’s her neck was stiff and she was cold

That would be quite dead. CPR won't help that and a nurse should be able to recognize that.

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Getting side tracked, but no facility is perfect. I have worked in LTC and acute care settings. I have been the nurse to receive a patient who went to the hospital and returned with a necrotic diabetic ulcer. And I had a friend who developed a stage 1 ulcer that was a stage 2 ulcer before discharge after surgergy. She returned to the nursing home and back to the hospital for a bone graft later...

A man was brought to the hospital with maggots in his wound from a nursing home.

I had a nurse at the hospital I alluded to tell me my friends ulcer was a stage one...only bleeding a little..when I was practically begging them to turn and position regularly and get her a specialty bed or mattress. Another hospital nurse told me most ulcers are not preventable.

It really works both ways.

I respect all nurses who are doing their best!

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I’m surprised this is an issue. How difficult would it be for the facility to pull up the camera on that patient and see who the negligent staff is that hasn’t been turning them?

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