getting "gifts" from patient every other day

[Blackheartednurse]

so i have two patients that i see once a week in their home. one gives me candies,chocolate oneach visit and insist that i take it. (a sweet 80 year old lady) the other one often gives me books (she is a 85 year old librarian and she needs her books to be in good hands (i guess she meant me since at times i expressed my respect for books).she also told me that i can pick any book from her shelf (she used to be a medical librarian) and just take it, lol which of course i would feel uncomfortable in doing.she also gave me a painting that she wanted to i guess get rid off. do you guys think that it is unethical for a nurse to accept gifts from patients who insist on giving them.

[caliotter3]

I once cared for a man who was in our LTC facility for a time. He won a very large settlement from suing the hospital that he had been in. He immediately bought a house and moved away taking his favorite caregivers to do private duty for him at his new home. The caregivers that he hired didn't give a second thought to the ethics of all of this, since the facility was such a hell hole. I would call a good job to be quite a gift, ethical or not.

[Kyrshamarks, BSN, RN]

Heck several years ago when I was doing home health, I had a man who's wife wanted him to ger rid of his pistol. He gave me a WW2 issued .45 M1911A1. I sure as heck kept that. It still fires like it is brand new.

[Flo., BSN, RN]

I would accept small gifts. My nana had HH for about a year. She loved getting little things for the team.

Ok this may sound bad but how is accepting a house that was willed to you unethical? The pt is dead no conflict of interest there.

[Batman25]

I would absolutely take the baked goods. We get them all the time on the floor so I see no harm in that. I don't have much issue with the used books either but you could borrow and return them after reading OR take the books and let her know how much the patients in a local hospital would love them and see if she is okay with you donating them. It could make her feel good to know she is helping others.

[RubyRN,CHPN]

I would have accepted the house - it can't interfere with your care, the client is dead!!!

And I found that home health is very different from the facilities.

....and when the long lost cousin comes to contest the will and accuses you of cohersion to get in the will and your P&P have rules about gifting, then what???

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

p.s. i had a pt that left me his (beautiful) house, in his will.

danged if i wasn't bummed about refusing that gift.

leslie

Leslie, I must assume you found out about this before the patient died, so you would have time to insist he remove your name from the list of legatees.

A "willed" article is not a gift, but a legacy, meaning that it is yours to dispose of as you see fit, and the only way you can refuse it is to make it over by deed of gift to someone else. Unless, of course, the old gentleman was already a bit ga-ga and his estate was already in curatorship...

But I agree, I would have refused it, even though it would have cost me several wrenches....:)