Hi all, this is in part an opportunity for me to vent, in part a request for other nurses to comment on whether they are seeing the same in their institutions. I care about my place of employment a lot, and would have a hard time going to work anywhere else, in part because the closest hospital is approx. 70 miles from here.
I work in a small critical access hospital that employs approximately 10 full time RN's, all of which are good nurses, that are very consciencious and take good care of our patients (we all have our better or worse days), except one nurse.
This has been an ongoing problem over a few years, this nurse continuously makes med errors, is rude to patients, families and co-workers alike and is not at all open to new policies or procedures. (A common comment I hear from her is "This is not my job, i am not going to do this). She never volunteers for anything, holds grudges for ever, conveniently disappears when there is a patient in ER or is being admitted. And if you ask her at the end of the day, she had to do it all by herself. She will not ask for help and would rather stick a patient 10 times attempting to start an IV than to ask a co-worker.
In the last few weeks she has had several episodes of crying, she feels as she is being treated unfairly. These crying jags apparently do not alarm anyone in administration to the fact that there may be a problem with her coping and her ability to handle stress.
There have been many complaints made to our DON and the Hospital Administrator (I know, because I made some of them myself), but they make excuses for her such as "You know this is a bad time of the year for her", or " you have to understand maybe her med levels need to be checked"
(she is on medication for bipolar disorder). There has been an investigation by the Board of Nursing, which cleared her of any wrongdoing.
