Causing financial damage at work (by accident)

Nurses General Nursing

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If you made a mistake that cost your employer money, would you offer to reimburse? I'm not talking about a med error or anything that put a patient in danger. Let's say you dropped an expensive piece of equipment and broke it. Would you be responsible to pay for that?

When I drove a school bus I accidently drove over the "safe school zone" sign. They didn't get around to replacing that for months. I didn't have to pay for either one.

I agree with Marie. That is kind of ironic though. That one had me laughing, too. :D

This thread reminds me of the time that I was working as a water aerobic instructor and one of the lifeguards wanted a day off. After I taught a class, she brought over the net and said that a kid had vomited in the pool, and since I was the only person considered to have any medical experience, could I please identify it as vomit so we could get the pool closed? I looked at it and thought it was a little suspicious. The pool was closed anyway. Later it was determined that she concoted the fake vomit. The cost of this stunt: pool had to be shocked with about $300 worth of chemicals and closed for 24 hours + plus all the revenue made from a mid-summer Saturday afternoon.

She was fired as she did it with malice. Hope the party she wanted to attend was worth it.:stone

Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.
What did you break?

LOL. It wasn't me, it was dh. He added too much salt to a batch at work and a whole production line had to be thrown out. He came home to tell me that he wanted to work free overtime for an indeterminate number of hours until he paid off the cost of the damage. My response of course was he** no, and that ruined batches is part of the cost of doing business and they can absorb the loss far better than he can. I just wondered whether there were any particular rules or laws that cover this type of loss/damage. (The company hasn't demanded reimbursement from dh; he offered out of his own sense of guilt and responsibility. Fortunately they declined his offer.)

I didn't break anything, but once I didn't check the dates on some caspofungin(sp) IV, and we ended up having to waste a dose, and it was something like 400.00. (the med was good for only 3 or 4 days once it was mixed).

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

i accidently raised a bed until the attached iv pole went through the flourescent light, which exploded, shattering glass everywhere. the manager peed her pants laughing.

while i was at lunch, a surgical resident (r-1) decided to suction out my patient's chest tubes, and the nurse who was covering was new enough that she didn't understand me when i mentioned that she needed to "supervise the resident" any time he was in the room. the resident didn't realize that he needed a suction cannister -- sucked bloody yuk up into the wall where it clogged up the system. the entire room was closed down for weeks while they took apart the suction system and cleaned it out then repaired it!

maybe this could be a new thread!

LOL. It wasn't me, it was dh. He added too much salt to a batch at work and a whole production line had to be thrown out. He came home to tell me that he wanted to work free overtime for an indeterminate number of hours until he paid off the cost of the damage. My response of course was he** no, and that ruined batches is part of the cost of doing business and they can absorb the loss far better than he can. I just wondered whether there were any particular rules or laws that cover this type of loss/damage. (The company hasn't demanded reimbursement from dh; he offered out of his own sense of guilt and responsibility. Fortunately they declined his offer.)

Too much salt to a batch of what?

I bet that company would be in big trouble if they took him up on his offer.

Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.
Too much salt to a batch of what?

I bet that company would be in big trouble if they took him up on his offer.

He works for a food processing plant and added too much salt to one batch that he was mixing. An entire production run had to be discarded, worth a few thousand dollars.

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

A friend of mine was trendelenberging a traction bed for a doc to put in a central line.

The end of the Balkan frame lifted the television off its perch and it fell forward and got caught on the Balkan frame.

The doc didn't want to move the patient and engineering wouldn't come move the tv because it was still plugged in.

My friend got a wooden crutch and pulled the plug for the chicken doc. and all was well with the world. And no, she didn't have to pay or get reprimanded.

Specializes in Palliative Care, NICU/NNP.

Sounds like you should have filed a complaint about damages to you from the faill!

NO, they are well insured for these things!! Two different times I was moving a bed w/a trapeze and hit the hanging IV poles (in the ceiling) knocking out pieces of ceiling tiles- my manager just laughed. Another time I dropped a bottle of Activase in the ER- they didn't even mention it. Did I mention I'm kind of a spazzy klutz.........

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