Discrimination Allegations

[Irabee]

I need an advice or just your thoughts. I work as inpatient mental health nurse. We had this tall, big , physically healthy and strong, highly aggressive patient on the unit. He sent one of our male nurses to ER and then on medical leave for several months.

Few weeks after this assault, he stopped taking his medications and became aggressive again. I called security to give a shot and they only sent us 2 people: one male and one female.

I requested another person but was told that they are short staffed. I said that we need at least one more male security to handle this violent patient safely.

This female security rolled her eyes and stated she has the same training. I didn't respond anything to that.  Likely, we were able to de-escalate the patient verbally, everything went OK.

The next day, I was told the female security filed a discrimination complaint to equity committee stating that she felt harassed and discriminated. She also made up a lie that I stated the following phrase TWICE :" You are a woman so you can't do your job as well as a man".

I have never said this phrase which was confirmed by my coworker. Later, the equity committee was trying to swipe it under the rug stating that they never asked her coworkers if they witnessed me stating this "key phrase".

I assume she tried to drop this phrase out of "discrimination case" because  she wasn't able to get her coworkers to testify the "discriminatory statement" she made up.

Long story short, I am on a second month of this "harassment investigation". I was already "educated" by DON and unit manager  that I have no right to request male security. I was already interviewed by equity committee ( which was very pervasive and accusatory) and I also recently mistakenly received an email  about "follow up discussion" on the investigation sent by my DON. She wasn't supposed to send it to me but she did accidentally then frantically attempted to unsend the email 5 times LOL. I also received an email from IT stating that DON requested to retract that email ASAP.

This makes me think that it is DON who is pushing this discrimination case. (I am not her favorite nurse LOL.) 

I am very distressed with all this.

How a simple request for adequate security can be turned into a discrimination case? 

All I asked is male security for aggressive male patient to protect everybody including the lady officer. How on earth could that be turned into a harassment case? 

In fact, I feel harassed by her.  She made up a lie about discriminatory statements and got me into 2 months long "discrimination investigation".

It is very humiliating and stressful. Please give me some advice on how to react and what to do. Can I take counter actions and report her to HR for falsifying facts? 

[Emergent, RN]

It sounds ridiculous to me. People have gotten so thin skinned these days.

Next time, maybe request someone who is bigger and stronger instead of specifying gender? There are some diminutive men whom I could beat in an arm wrestle.

Meanwhile, start looking at the job boards. ? 

[Davey Do]

People would rather be victims than perpetrators and they feel better about their pain when they have someone to blame. Those with low self-esteem look to find fault with others and put them down in order to self-elevate.

Having dealt with similar circumstances many times through my career such as yours, Irabee, I learned to carry on, be a person of integrity, and say, "With these oxen we must plow".

In the end, "My happiness does not depend on what others do or say or what happens around me. My happiness is a result of being at peace with myself".

[Irabee]

Emergent said:

It sounds ridiculous to me. People have gotten so thin skinned these days.

Next time, maybe request someone who is bigger and stronger instead of specifying gender? There are some diminutive men whom I could beat in an arm wrestle.

Meanwhile, start looking at the job boards. ? 

According to equity committee I am not allowed to discriminate against any personal characteristics such as weight, height etc.... We are talking about security people!!

[Nurse Alexa, MSN, RN]

This post frustrates me listening to individuals on the same test accuse each other. I think it's fair to say if this patient was an aggressive, large male that STRONG reinforcements are needed. Physically, a strong male is more intimidating to an aggressive patient and I think this is reasonable to assume.

It appears that the woman who got upset with your comment is looking to start an argument in my opinion. Coming from experience of having patient's lunge at me and try to hurt me, I would want the strongest, male security guards there to assist in restraining the patient. 

[Davey Do]

Irabee said:

 We are talking about security people!!

And when we talk about security people, we are generally referring to those who have limited salaries, have little to no higher education and have to show a facade of power in tense and trying situations with sometimes very little training.

In any field, any profession, it is those who are more comfortable with who they are that tend to be the easiest to work with. Otherwise, they will irrefutably be trying to prove that they are worthy individuals who demand respect in every and all situations.

[JKL33]

Irabee said:

According to equity committee I am not allowed to discriminate against any personal characteristics such as weight, height etc.... We are talking about security people!!

This person who has complained sounds miserable. Sorry you are having to deal with this.

That said,

Irabee said:

According to equity committee I am not allowed to discriminate against any personal characteristics such as weight, height etc.... We are talking about security people!!

I agree you should not ask for help according to these sort of characteristics any more; if for no other reason than to prevent a similar fallout.

The bottom line is that regardless of personal characteristics of the person(s) who show up, remember that your employer has hired them to perform this role...in theory because they think they can indeed perform it.

If you do not think you have enough help for the task at hand (for whatever reason, which you can keep to yourself) then your recourse is to call for additional help or at the least not undertake a task that can reasonably be expected to put any of you in additional danger. If you think the situation is dangerous and you don't have enough help there, call 911 for reinforcement, see how your employer likes that (Spoiler: they won't like it at all--but then the ball is back in their court to make sure they have staff on hand to keep people safe).

[Irabee]

Davey Do said:

People would rather be victims than perpetrators and they feel better about their pain when they have someone to blame. Those with low self-esteem look to find fault with others and put them down in order to self-elevate.

Having dealt with similar circumstances many times through my career such as yours, Irabee, I learned to carry on, be a person of integrity, and say, "With these oxen we must plow".

In the end, "My happiness does not depend on what others do or say or what happens around me. My happiness is a result of being at peace with myself".

Unfortunately, it is not all about feelings only. This situation has a negative implications for me. For example, I do not want to have a nasty " discrimination case " in my HR profile. It might affect me negatively in the future.  There was no discrimination/harassment so I don't want any trace of it in my work history.  I read our hospital policies and it doesn't even  fall under discrimination/harassment category: there was no hostility .. I wasn't even rude to her!  I am also applying to grad school affiliated to the medical center and being a " discriminator" won't serve me a favor. 

[JKL33]

Irabee said:

Unfortunately, it is not all about feelings only.

No, but I do think you can kind of just move on, here.

Let them write their dumb reports, any nurse you come across in real life is going to understand that you only meant to say that you thought additional help was needed for a violent situation.

It's up to you but I would think hard about how much time and emotion to waste on this. If your suspicion is that this DON is pushing this because she doesn't particularly care for you, this isn't going to get better by giving her more fodder to work with. This very well may be one of those situations where you take the wind out of everyone's sails by just saying, "I wasn't thinking in those terms when I asked for help, I can see your point." End of story.

Unless you have other disciplinary problems I can't see this being a big deal anywhere (grad school app, etc).

[Davey Do]

Irabee said:

Unfortunately, it is not all about feelings only.

With all due respect, Irabee, it is all about feelings.

If it were all about logic and logistics, there would not be any such situation. The security guard felt harassed and discriminated against. You feel as though you've been unfairly accused and will need to deal with the ramifications of your decisions and subsequent statements.

When feelings- emotions- come into play, logic goes out the window. A decision was made by the RN in charge that the involved staff was inadequate to deal with the situation. This is a call made by knowledge and experience and was based in logical judgement. The RN in charge is responsible for assessing the situation and making decisions based on that assessment, a non-emotional logical process.

Then, a staff member took it personally that they were deemed inadequate, and their response was based on emotions- feelings- got defensive and made a complaint. Had the staff member realized that the RN in charge is ultimately responsible for the outcome- the safety of both  patients and staff, perhaps they would have seen a different perspective on the decision that was made.

Irabee said:

It might affect me negatively in the future. 

My first nursing instructor in 1983, said, "Sometimes you will be fired for doing the right thing".

This has come to pass a couple of times in my career. I firmly believed I was doing what was right and was terminated, and I would do the same things again because I am the only one who has to live with myself. As the saying goes, "Once we give up integrity, the rest is a piece of cake".

And finally, Richard Bach passed on a concept the I have endeavored to follow in my life:

"Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world- even if what is published is not true."

[Irabee]

thank you for the wise advice 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Unfortunately for you these kinds of complaints have to get a lot of attention from management.  They don't want it to go further to the state for example, or to the community.  During the #metoo movement, they saw what happened when discrimination/harassment claims are swept under the rug.  

Lessons learned.  You should have said "I don't feel safe and need more security".  She had a point, female security guards are trained in these situations.  But also that she lied or even complained at all was a bit over the top.

Best of luck and I hope it gets off your record.