I screwed up, and everyone working with me got written up!!!

[NurseCard, ADN]

Will try to make this fairly simple; may provide details later. I work in a fairly small place; a psychiatric facility with about 100 beds, on night shift. I work on a children's unit. One night I was working with two other nurses, and they decided to designate me the "aide", if you will, for the night. The following morning, one of the kids' beds was soaking wet; I didn't know his bed was wet and neither did anyone else. He had wet the bed one other time during the night and we had gotten him cleaned up.

Our entire shift got written up because this kid's bed was wet. Again, we didn't know his bed was wet; he'd apparently gotten up and come on out into the "milleu" without telling any of us that he had wet the bed again; apparently we didn't smell it on him, nothing. The day shift program director had pointed out the wet bed to me, and I promptly changed it.

Here's the thing; the whole thing was MY screw up!!! I had put... towels on the bed. I won't go into detail as to why I did that, but it was something I should have never done, I was totally in the wrong by doing it, and I felt like I owned up to what I had done. But to "make a proper example" "You are a team and it's everyone's fault if the work doesn't get properly done"... she wrote us all up!! The other two women did nothing wrong.

So now I have to work with these women; one of them is NOT a particularly nice person when she is ****** off at you. I feel like going back to my manager and asking her to PLEASE take back the writeups against the other two nurses; I even felt like telling her that she could fire me if she felt like THAT would set the example that she wanted. Maybe that would be the honorable thing to do; or maybe it would be the stupid thing to do, seeing as how I am supporting a family of four... I don't know.

I wish she would have just written me up, final warning and all, and left it at that. Instead... she felt like she needed to "set an example". We had suddenly started getting these complaints from day shift that beds weren't getting changed, clothes weren't getting washed... nursing station messy... supply room messy... blah blah blah.. and it wasn't making a whole lot of sense; if we knew that a child had wet the bed, we had been changing the bed!

We were washing their clothes. None of it was making sense to me; I wasn't being given any specific examples, just complaints that it wasn't getting done when, to my knowledge, it had been getting done for quite some time.

Then management decided to set up a shift to shift checklist of duties, and bed checks between the night shift aide and day shift... but BEFORE all of that was put into place, the writeup happened.

No one should have even gotten into trouble over it if "teamwork" is supposed to be a factor i.e., the day shift tech pointed out the wet bed to me, and I changed it. But, the towels on the bed... makes me think that that sealed the deal? I don't know.

Anyway, just kinda venting/thinking out loud.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

How do they know he hadn't peed 10 minutes before shift change?

[ALMRN]

There is a bright side to all of this. No one lost their job and you shouldn't sacrifice your job either. Mistakes happen and sometimes setting examples are not always fair, sometimes the point is for the other's to be more aware of everything that's going on on the floor. It is team work when not one is blamed, but all. I would have happily taken that write up along with you. In nursing we have to work together, take up for eachother and just have one another's back. It was a silly thing to get written up for b/c no one knows how long the bed was wet. Your manager was just making a big deal out of nothing to prevent something bigger from happening later, it's okay. The angry nurse will get over it eventually, the most you can do is apologize for letting your team down, nothing more; then everyone should move on and get back to team working.:loveya:

[NurseCard, ADN]

Well, I appreciate the comments. I'm frustrated with this job; I feel like I'm stuck working 8 hour night shifts, and the kids are buck wild in the mornings, trying to kill each other. Staffing is not the world's greatest. In addition... this whole mess. I'm trying to stick it out as best I can; I'm tired of switching jobs once a year.

[learninmama]

How do they know he hadn't peed 10 minutes before shift change?

I was thinking the same thing! I know with my kids when they used to have accidents they sometimes would hide it or not tell me because they were embarassed. I'd find it when I woke them up or when I went to make their beds. Not a surprise I enjoyed finding but, it's what kids do.

[Batman25]

How do they know he hadn't peed 10 minutes before shift change?

That's the first thing I thought of as well. This could have happened right about shift change and in that event it wouldn't be anyone's fault. You can't be all places at once.

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I'm confused about how towels affected the whole situation? And, OP, stop beating yourself up. If that's all they can find to write you up over, even AFTER you corrected the situation, then phooey on them. Is an item on the checklist to check every bed AFTER the child is up? What if they mess the bed, make it up themselves, and no one notices until the next night?

This whole thing seems off to me.

[IHeartPeds87]

where do the towels come into play....?

[snuffyRN]

If you didn't know the bed was wet how did you know to cover it with towels? And why waste your time doing that and not just change it, I wouldn't like to lay on a urine puddle covered with towels!

[LovebugLPN]

If you didn't know the bed was wet how did you know to cover it with towels? And why waste your time doing that and not just change it, I wouldn't like to lay on a urine puddle covered with towels!

Is that what happened? You covered the mess with towels? That makes no sense.

[AOx1]

I don't like it when people are passive aggressive. I once worked with a nurse who always left her patients a mess. Blown IVs, dirty patient, soiled brief, etc. I did not find this to be a continuous problem with any other nurse on the floor. I insisted we do rounds together at change of shift, and asked her to fix any issues I found. This seemed to solve the problem. The time to report to a manager is when you have attempted repeatedly to communicate with someone and gotten nowhere. The other shift should have pointed it out and left it at that. You did fix it.

I wish we would see more proactive vs reactive management. If there have been past problems on the shift, they should have arranged a meeting at change of shift to discuss issues, several meetings if needed, and brainstormed ideas such as a checklist or walking rounds, etc. Unfortunately, it sounds as if your manager wanted not teamwork but a scapegoat.

I think also we need to keep in mind that we don't always know what happens on another shift. I remember once I coded a patient repeatedly over the last few hours of a shift. I had asked another nurse to please check on my other patient, who was very stable. Bythe time the family decided to change the other patient's code status to DNR, it was 5 minutes until shift change. I got the signed order from the physician on the chart, tidied the messy room in which the patient had coded, and when he then coded again, stayed to perform postmortem care on the patient, even calling organ sharing, etc. It was a long, difficult night. I caught up my charting on the other patient. The nurse coming in on the next shift complained after all that as if I had committed an egregious error. Do you know what it was? I had (*gasp*) forgotten to restock 5 mL syringes in the other patient's room. Bad me.

[donnasRN]

Is that what happened? You covered the mess with towels? That makes no sense.

I'm guessing she put the towels down as a precaution b/c he has a hx of bed wetting but the towels ended up getting soaked w/ urine & they thought it was being covered up? OP, is that what happened? I work in psych as well, & although I work w/ adolescents, we've had a few who've suffered from enuresis - These pts are always put on a toileting scheduling over night (i.e. woken up by staff @ 12a & 4am to use the bathroom) & DDAVP is ordered. I suggest you bring up a similar type of protocol to management so your situation doesn't arise again.