I worked as a wound care nurse in a nursing home. I have had many pats on the back by Admins and DON as well as our Medical Director for the work I have done. Recently our census went up to 112 residents and the number of wounds tripled as many were coming from hospitals with multiple wounds.
This past Monday I told the Administrator and DON that I was invoking the Safe Harbour Act. Neither of them knew what that was. I told them that they needed two Treatment Nurses as I couldn't possibly do all the Treatments and do 112 head to toe body assessments every week.
Last night I did the Weekly Skin report and it was a train wreck! I turned it into my Administrator this morning and also discussed the idea of the weekend supervisor doing Head to Toe assessments on weekends and coming in some during the week to complete them. He agreed this would solve our delima of so many residents not enough time to do them all. Also he would not have to hire another nurse and the weekend supervisor was happy to do this as she wanted more hours. I figured since he agreed I did not feel the need to fill the Safe harbour form out that it had been resolved.
This afternoon after doing all the treatments needed I was called to his office and terminated.
I think they terminated me because the safe harbour act scared them and they took it as an attack on the facility. Of course they came up with other reasons to terminate me. One being my attendance that I was wrote up only once for and since that time have never missed.
Anyone have any experience with invoking safe harbour and to what my rights my be? I feel railroaded so they could cover their own butts! :angryfire
In Texas you can't just SAY you are invoking safe harbor - you have to print out the piece of paper and take it to the appropriate chain of command.
You hope as a nurse there will never be a need to do this - you hope you never have to - but every nurse should have a copy of whatever form is required in their locker or notebook or somewhere. Without it - it aint safe harbor.
Wow, I am confused here, I was terminated for not changing a doctor's order, (instructed by a superviser), and each attorney I had talked to said that if you aren't union, you are an at will employee and they do not need a reason to terminate you! Now I was at one time a TX nurse, that is one of the hardest jobs there are, you just aren't responsible for the tx's, but the weekly, monthly reports and if stage wounds are up it reflects on you.
gauge14iv, MSN, APRN, NP
1,622 Posts
In Texas you can't just SAY you are invoking safe harbor - you have to print out the piece of paper and take it to the appropriate chain of command.
You hope as a nurse there will never be a need to do this - you hope you never have to - but every nurse should have a copy of whatever form is required in their locker or notebook or somewhere. Without it - it aint safe harbor.