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

[NurseCard]

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.

[litchi]

From what I gather, the OP placed towels on the bed for some undisclosed reason and left them there. When the bed was found wet, whoever discovered it must have assumed that night shift knew the bed was wet due to the towels being there. From that assumption, they probably thought the bed was just forgotten/not taken care of.

At any rate, I agree with ALMRN on this.

[IHeartPeds87]

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

If that is what you did then i'm sorry but you are lucky that all that happenned was a write up. That means that you KNEW the patient had urinated in bed and didn't change the patient. That is really not right of you. That is intentionally avoiding patient care.

I am generally under the opinion that nurses/aides report on each other too much and get written up for things that they shouldn't be written up for. If this is really what you did, then please take a hard look at yourself and change, and I think you deserved a write up for INTENTIONALLY avoiding patient care.

[NurseCard, ADN]

The point is really not whether or not I deserved the write up, but the fact that two of my coworkers got written up for something that I did and they had no idea.

No, I didn't put the towels on the bed to cover up a mess that was there; I changed the bed the first time during the night and then laid the towels on the bed. I also didn't put the towels there to catch future urine.

I'll tell you why I put the towels there... and it's embarrassing, and no I shouldn't have done this, and yes I deserved to get written up for this alone. I put them there because this child did not appear to me to be particularly soiled at the moment, and his clothes were in the laundry with probably no more than 30-45 minutes left to go on the cycle to get washed and dried. I put the towels there to keep the bed fresh until he had clothes on that were good and clean. We have a donation bin, but this child had his basket FULL of donation clothes already, I had been through that basket before for clothes for him with very little luck, he was a large, BULKY little kid who was hard to find clothes for.

This was a child who was *repeatedly* soiling himself, feces and urine, day and night. This was his second admission; the first admission he had been put on a training schedule, with no luck (this is an older child, mind you. 9, I think). This time, depends had been ordered for him and he was supposed to be wearing them, but he had started refusing. Soooo.. maybe part of what I did was irritation; it almost seemed sometimes like he was doing this stuff on purpose. He even came to the NS one night and asked for 9 straight cups of water. I gave them to him because I had to assume he was that thirsty. Maybe the kid's diabetic, I don't know. AFAIK, he'd never had an abnormal blood sugar.

(and if you think that a child would NEVER do this type of thing on purpose... you've never worked child psych. Most of you, I assume, have not. But anyway...)

Long story short, I should have went ahead and right then and there, went to the donation bin. He did end up getting his clothes changed shortly, and got a shower... only to soil his bed again later that morning, and we didn't know about it. Towels were on the bed... made it look, of course, like I'd put them there to either cover up urine or catch urine.

There you go.

[nursel56]

You placed the towels as a barrier between un-showered boy and clean linens temporarily until his clothes were clean and he had taken a shower? - I don't think that merits the extreme response you got. Maybe you could have taken the towels away after he was all clean and ready to get back in his freshly changed bed-- or checked some time between the first change and the end of the shift--- however. . .

I seem quite obvious to me that you and your other two nurses are the sacrificial lambs so that your supervisor can look like she's doing something about the day shift complaints. If everything worked for the best- you would be listened to and the misunderstood nature of the situation would be cleared up, and you would have credible specific problems outlined by the day shift.

As it is, it'll probably blow over on it's own, and I think it's quite the good thing to be willing to suffer extra consequences to yourself in order to spare your co-workers the write-ups. Hope it all works out for the best. :)

[NurseCard, ADN]

Yeah, I just forgot to remove the towels, pretty much. Didn't actually mean to leave them there. Oh well, like you say, this whole thing will probably just blow over. Thanks. :)

[donnasRN]

Since the toileting schedule was unsuccessful, you could suggest having the hall check person make sure he hasn't soiled himself during each round, & if he did then have it taken care of. This would also help in ensuring towels aren't forgotten. Our hall checks are done every 15 mins., not sure about your facility. The doc should consider ordering some DDAVP & a fluid restriction after a certain time (although a little touchy w/ JCAHO). This might help you & your peers for the future... Good luck.

The point is really not whether or not I deserved the write up, but the fact that two of my coworkers got written up for something that I did and they had no idea.

No, I didn't put the towels on the bed to cover up a mess that was there; I changed the bed the first time during the night and then laid the towels on the bed. I also didn't put the towels there to catch future urine.

I'll tell you why I put the towels there... and it's embarrassing, and no I shouldn't have done this, and yes I deserved to get written up for this alone. I put them there because this child did not appear to me to be particularly soiled at the moment, and his clothes were in the laundry with probably no more than 30-45 minutes left to go on the cycle to get washed and dried. I put the towels there to keep the bed fresh until he had clothes on that were good and clean. We have a donation bin, but this child had his basket FULL of donation clothes already, I had been through that basket before for clothes for him with very little luck, he was a large, BULKY little kid who was hard to find clothes for.

This was a child who was *repeatedly* soiling himself, feces and urine, day and night. This was his second admission; the first admission he had been put on a training schedule, with no luck (this is an older child, mind you. 9, I think). This time, depends had been ordered for him and he was supposed to be wearing them, but he had started refusing. Soooo.. maybe part of what I did was irritation; it almost seemed sometimes like he was doing this stuff on purpose. He even came to the NS one night and asked for 9 straight cups of water. I gave them to him because I had to assume he was that thirsty. Maybe the kid's diabetic, I don't know. AFAIK, he'd never had an abnormal blood sugar.

(and if you think that a child would NEVER do this type of thing on purpose... you've never worked child psych. Most of you, I assume, have not. But anyway...)

Long story short, I should have went ahead and right then and there, went to the donation bin. He did end up getting his clothes changed shortly, and got a shower... only to soil his bed again later that morning, and we didn't know about it. Towels were on the bed... made it look, of course, like I'd put them there to either cover up urine or catch urine.

There you go.