Ethical question...give their alcohol back or not?

[ERnurse2001]

Your patient is in your hospital department because they are either drunk (ER) or admitted for DT's (floor). You or a co-worker find a bottle of alcohol in your patients belongings. Do you:

A) Keep it with the patient's belongings. It is their property and you have no right to dictate what happens to it other than to treat it like any of their other belongings.

B) Empty whatever is left in the bottle and throw it away. Your patient obviously has an alcohol problem and it is your responsibility to see to it that they abstain whether they like it or not.

Would love your input!

[Wet Noodle]

No order, no bottle. Should be no different than any other substance.

Do you dispose of all legal property a patient comes in with? A bottle of ibuprofen? A bottle of $100-per-pill chemotherapy drugs? Is that your facility's policy?

I do not agree with giving it back upon discharge.

What if you give the guy his belt back, and he uses it to assault someone the next week?

If the guy drinks the booze you gave him & then commits a crime (such as manslaughter by driving drunk), I would be afraid of a liability issue. I would not want to be any part of that. Bars and other establishments have been sued for over-serving. I think it is irresponsible to hand over a bottle of liquor to a KNOWN drinker and/or substance abuser.

Has a liquor store been successfully sued for selling someone a bottle of liquor, when the person they sold it to was of legal age and completely sober? If so, we're back in prohibition.

What would you do if someone checked into the hospital with a pistol, for which he had a permit? Would you keep that as well, lest he shoot someone with it after discharge?

If I were you I'd be more concerned about getting sued for theft of property.

[barbyann]

I would call the supervisor and ask her to call it so then the documentation would reflect that I was unsure and went through the proper channels.

[Andy Droid]

Awfull lot of folks seem to think it's fine to (basicaly) steal a PT's personal property......

Hope I'm not the only one that finds that a tad bit troubling.

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

Would you throw out a pack of cigarettes? A bottle of Valium?Alcohol is not illegal so you have no right to dispose of it.

[edmia, BSN, RN]

Throw it away. They can buy more alcohol when they get out. Alcohol is not allowed in the hospital.

Unless they have an expensive, unopened bottle of wine or something like that. Then have family take it home, but cheap half pints falling out of their pant pocket as EMS wheels them in? Straight to the garbage.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

[Vinniesguy]

Gets locked in the med cupboard and returned on discharge. We have no right to keep a patients property.

[pfongk]

Locked in the Med room, documented appropriately and returned on discharge.

[wish_me_luck, BSN, RN]

100% letter A. Alcohol, if the person is over 21 yrs old and whether the person has alcohol issues or not, is patient property. Alcohol is not allowed in the hospital as long as it is someone walking in with it. When it is a pt coming into the ER via ambulance, etc. that is different because it's not like they willingly brought it in. If you discard it or whatever, you removed/took pt belongings.

Just mark it (with pt sticker or whatever), store it, and return it. For the poster that said something like dump it because what if they go out and get into a wreck and the hospital is involved in manslaughter...that is far fetched. You gave them their property back, what they did after they got it; they are responsible for the consequences.

[VICEDRN, BSN, RN]

All personal belongings in our facility are stored with security. We don't pre- sort them. Security is responsible for disposing inappropriate items such as drug paraphernalia. You should check facility policy. This is not an "ethical" debate, if you think it is then you need to revisit the definition of codependent behavior and share it with your fellow nurses on duty. :-)

[mariebailey, MSN, RN]

I would think a policy exists to get you out of this ethical dilemma, & I would find out. Legal or not, I would think alcohol would not be permitted in the facility. Therefore, it seems appropriate that personnel, such as security, should be notified. It also seems appropriate for personal property to be confiscated if it is not permitted, but whose role is it to carry this out? I'm really not sure either of the 2 suggested actions listed would be beneficial to the patient or the nurse. Just takin' a stab at it here, but I think I would:

1) Seek clarification on hospital policy from my supervisor or someone else who usually knows what they're talking about

2) As a nurse, use interventions like providing education & referrals to rehab & support groups like AA, etc. that would be more likely to impact what the patient does when he/she leaves the hospital, rather than pouring their ETOH down the drain.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I draw a line in sharpie at the level of the booze and then goes back with the pt belongings. That way we can show exactly where it was when they entered.

[Kyrshamarks, BSN, RN]

You May be surprised if you check your hospitals policy book. I would bet that there is NO POLICY regarding patients having alcohol in their room or possession. I have seen many tomes families visiting patients and the bring in a bottle of wine to drink.