forced to work when sick?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Hey everyone,

I work in a busy emergency department. Over the past few months we've been short staffed and over capacity (almost daily).

Anyways, I felt unwell with niggling abdominal pain when I woke up this morning but not to the point where I felt I should call in sick (i cant remember the last time i called in sick). About 3 hours into my shift the pain gradually become worse... then severe along with nausea. I took some meds thinking it was gastritis and would settle but it did not. I was in the middle of doing an assessment and had to excuse myself. I went straight to my charge nurse and asked to go home. I was literally in tears and guarding my abdo. Without any change of expression my charge nurse looked at our roster and bluntly said, "we have no one to cover you, unfortunately you're going to have to stay until the end of your shift because its not fair on the rest of the team". Talk about a guilt trip.

I felt quite shocked and helpless. I then became stressed and anxious thinking to myself.. how the hell am I am meant to work when I can hardly walk due to the pain. I walked away from my charge nurse (very gingerly) to compose myself and prep myself to go back and finish the assessment. It wasn't until a co-worker asked if I was okay that I burst into tears. My co-worker ended up bringing me into a side room, triaging me and telling our charge nurse that I wasn't able to work. I did not want to be triaged (i have never been a patient in hospital ever before). I felt i could go home,take some good analgesia in fetal position and ride it out until i was able to see my own doctor but I felt I had no choice since i was being made to stay and work.

I ended up getting a full work up including IV morphine to settle the pain.

I am seeking advice. Do I e-mail the charge nurse manager to express my disappointment with the staffing levels and how that charge nurse handled the situation? I loathe confrontation and I'm not comfortable approaching that particular charge nurse one on one. Or do I need to understand from that charge nurses side... being under pressure with short staff? I sometimes over analyse situations and wonder if it could have been a personal issue with me (I recently reduced my hours to part-time because I got a new job on the side).

Lastly, that particular charge nurse is responsible for the roster and has been very flexible with my hours surrounding my new side job and I would hate to cause a stir since she's the one who approves the shift swaps. She's been very good to me with giving me the shifts/hours I want.

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
I agree that if you are really too sick to continue, you should be allowed to go home. I get a lot of employees that come in sick thinking that it looks better for them when they need to go home after a few hours or even a few minutes. Clearly that wasn't the deal in this case. It is more likely that we can find someone to work if someone calls in.....maybe even get someone to stay. Once the shift starts it is really almost impossible to find someone.

This is all well and good, except that in many hospitals, you are punished for calling in less than 2 (or more) hours prior to your shift. What if you are still asleep then? Out of luck.

Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
I want to put This on a T-Shirt!

You need a crankier font.

And here is the beautiful female Gen Avatar modeling This on a T shirt with a crankier font:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24807[/ATTACH]

Specializes in LTC and Pediatrics.

You leave it alone and move on. Since you ended up being a patient in said unit, she now knows how sick you really were. She will surely listen to you after this when you say you are sick.

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

Did the charge nurse know how sick you were? Did you TELL her how sick you were? Or just that you wanted to go home? Don't expect her to have been triaging you while you were talking to her -- she probably had her mind on a dozen other things. If you didn't explicitly spell out your issue, you cannot blame her for not getting it.

I was once working with a float staff nurse whom I didn't know very well, and she was about ten months pregnant. She was a runner, and hardly looked pregnant at all. She came to me, as the charge nurse, and told me that she wanted to leave a couple of hours early if possible -- no reason given. Just that she wanted to leave early. We were in CCU, and although things were "calm" at the moment to the outside eye, we had a patient coming from the cath lab, due in about half an hour. There was one being flown in from an outside hospital due within the hour and another in V-tach (we had a rhythm monitoring service for outpatients to call in and transmitt their rhythms in the days before AICDs) driving himself in from his ranch and yet another in the ER who was coming to us. With four patients coming, there was no way I could let anyone go home early. I was explaining that to her when her water broke.

Of course she had to leave, and I felt absolutely horrible. If she had just told me why she wanted to leave early in the first place, it would have been a whole lot easier on both of us.

The baby was born before the end of our shift, in the elevator between ER and OB.

"do I need to understand from that charge nurses side?" NO you do not.

In this case you were too sick to perform your duties. Charge nurse was not following policy and procedure when assigned personnel cannot safely perform their duties.

Go up the chain of command and report this. This is now a patient safety issue.

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
... another in V-tach (we had a rhythm monitoring service for outpatients to call in and transmitt their rhythms in the days before AICDs) driving himself in from his ranch.

Wait what, he was driving himself in from his ranch WHILE in V-tach??!

Wait what, he was driving himself in from his ranch WHILE in V-tach??!

Seen it. Fun times.

emDOCs.net – Emergency Medicine EducationStable Monomorphic Ventricular Tachycardia Management in the ED - emDOCs.net - Emergency Medicine Education

I'm not certain how I would handle the situation with your manager; however, I would point out the importance of NOT working when you're unwell. It really is a serious patient safety issue.

Last year, I witnessed a nurse who was still recovering from Influenza A (yet expected to work) sneeze in a neutropenic patient's room. Two days later, the PT was febrile and died 1 week later from Influenza A. The PT had previously survived 5 cancer surgeries and considering her situation, was doing remarkably well - only to be brought down by something that could have easily been prevented. Of course, none of us can know for certain it was the nurse who passed the virus on - but the correlation is alarming, since the PT was isolated. In short - if you're sick - don't go to work. Even if you aren't contagious - you still have a duty of care to ensure you're thinking clearly.

All I can think of is: What if a patient died because I made a mistake due to being unfit for work? Could I live with myself?

+ Add a Comment