Illinois Nurses Speak Out for Patient Safety: Hospital Retaliates

[Erin Lee, BSN, RN]

Thank you for sharing ! I know your article is focused on Illinois but this is certainly an issue nationwide. I know I have personally faced retaliation for speaking up, it was a unionized hospital and my union rep was of zero help. I spoke up that the sitter should have never been removed from the room, my charge RN said she couldn't do anything about it and handed me a form to file for virtual sitter, after completing that I told her I would be submitting a SIRS report. Minutes, literally minutes later, my manager was there pulling me into her office & writing me up. During our sit down I expressed retaliation to my manager with my rep there, the rep literally disregarded this concern and told me that my manager had my best interest. Needless to say I left that unit shortly after. It is so sad that we are facing this. I love how you addressed things to do about it if you are in IL. I wish we had some sort of national/federal regulations on safe staffing, because it is out of control, and the standard of care does not vary that drastically from state to state, if at all in many scenarios.  

[Tommy5677]

I know this doesn't have a lot to do directly with the topic here but it kind of does so I'm going to state it here anyway.

I recently watched both Netflix shows on the Charlie Cullen incident: the documentary and the movie based on the incident. Both of them raised a lot of questions for me and I'm still scratching my head on how he got away with it for so long. He was convicted of murdering 29 people, received 18 consecutive life sentences with eligibility for parole in 2403. Talk about patient safety. They believe the number of his victims was in the hundreds and he is the most prolific serial killer in American if not global history.

Every hospital involved was complicit by refusing to do anything about it with the exception of firing him. As a result he drifted from place to place, allowing this monster to continue. No charges have ever been brought against ANY of the hospitals involved. How does this even happen?

During the entire time this was going on, no one, NO ONE, reported him to the board. Not any of the hospitals, not any of the nurses he worked with. In both the documentary and the Hollywood production, not once was there ever any mention of a nursing board. IMHO, whether a hospital or a nurse, if you even suspect that something like this is going on it's your responsibility to do something, like uh, oh I dunno, calling the board of nursing! What are the ramifications of failing to do so? If the board even suspected there was a hint of truth to any of it they could have suspended his license, and through subsequent investigation, revoking it if necessary. Were any of the BON's aware of his behavior but failed to do anything? Failed his victims?

All of the nurses involved should have been hauled in before the BON to explain themselves and subsequently suspending and/or revoking their license. I'm just disgusted by the whole thing.

What about the police? When they were up against a dead end, why didn't they call the BON at least to move on suspension?

Has anyone else seen both of these productions? Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[londonflo]

Tommy5677 said:

He was convicted of murdering 29 people, received 18 consecutive life sentences with eligibility for parole in 2403. Talk about patient safety. They believe the number of his victims was in the hundreds and he is the most prolific serial killer in American if not global history.

Read about another Illinois health care professional (an MD) who had a track record for being connected to patients dying. This all started in his residency but he continued on......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango

Book

https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Eye-Terrifying-Doctor-Murder/dp/0684865637