Need your opinions on reporting nurse for drug abuse

[fyi2600]

I work in psych for UHS and one of my fellow nurses admits to using cannabis on a regular basis. She has admitted to me and other staff members that she enjoys taking advantage of the fact that our hospital only drug tests during the hiring process and has been abusing weed the entire time. I think she has almost 10 years in at our facility as a medication nurse. This nurse claims she even has a friend who will provide her urine in the event of possible drug test. 

In terms of her work performance, she stays off the radar. She's very private and isn't a whole lot of help overall. Ironically, she's quite proficient at incident reports when it comes to writing up other employees. She's a troublemaker, loves to instigate, gossip and pit employees against one another. Her behavior with the patients is poor. Rude dismissive and uncaring, rarely follows up on care. She spends a good deal of time working in the detox unit where there were several deaths in the last year (deaths are rare in psych). I'm not saying she has anything to do with those deaths, but it makes me wonder if her state of mind and attitude are in the right place in medically acute unit. 

I'm inclined to report her, the process is what I need help with. This employee has friends in high places, she's a dedicated brown-noser of the CNO and house supervisors so I'm concerned that reporting her may fall on deaf ears. I'd also prefer to report anonymously for the very possible likelihood of reprisal. Should I go to HR? What details do I include? Opinions? 

[PDRN]

If you do decide to report her, go to the BON, bypass hospital personnel or administration. Yuck...she sounds like a delight.

[Davey Do]

On 2/11/2022 at 11:09 AM, fyi2600 said:

In terms of her work performance, she stays off the radar. She's very private and isn't a whole lot of help overall. Ironically, she's quite proficient at incident reports when it comes to writing up other employees. She's a troublemaker, loves to instigate, gossip and pit employees against one another. Her behavior with the patients is poor. Rude dismissive and uncaring, rarely follows up on care. She spends a good deal of time working in the detox unit where there were several deaths in the last year (deaths are rare in psych). I'm not saying she has anything to do with those deaths, but it makes me wonder if her state of mind and attitude are in the right place in medically acute unit. 

Edgar Cayce said, "We can't get anybody in more trouble than they can get themselves into". If we allow The Fates to have their way, they will guide or drag this person to where they belong.

It's difficult to relinquish control over something that we feel or believe requires our intervention, but if we let go and let God, things will work out as they should.

Case in point: There was this lazy, good-for-nothing tech who would put flies on ointments seemingly for his own entertainment. He was a drinking buddy with one of the administrators, so he seemed to be an Untouchable. I wrote him up a few times for insubordination, circumventing those in authority, and for inappropriate behavior with patients and nothing happened, so I let it go. I had done my duty in objectively reporting these incidents and believed I could or should do no more.

The tech was eventually fired when caught on video putting a restraint strap over an adolescent patient's mouth. The patient complained to his parents who complained to administration. Administration reviewed the video tapes and found the complaints to have grounds. End of story.

Now, I relished in the karmic comeupins. Had administration curbed this tech's behavior from the get-go, perhaps he would have learned some boundaries. But he went on his merry way, only to get himself in more trouble than I could get him into.

[NO JOKES OR PUNS ALLOWED, BSN, RN]

As someone who occasionally smokes weed, you sound like you're just mad this person is doing something legal in their off hours that you dislike.  Delta 8 is legal to consume everywhere per the recent federal ruling, and in my experience, most hospitals don't care if you use THC.

Report her if you want and she's unprofessional beyond her sin of doing something you dislike in her off time, but don't think it's some grand conspiracy if nothing happens.  Also don't be surprised when your coworkers never invite you out after this.  As tired as you are of Evil Ganja Nurse, I would hazard a guess one or more people are equally tired of you.

[sideshowstarlet, BSN, RN]

Just report the work issues that you observe. Leave out the bit about marijuana. If she does indeed have a friend who can provide urine, the drug use would be difficult to prove. The way she interacts with patients and coworkers should be obvious to any manager who cares to look. 

I would definitely leave out the high death rate (unless you have specific concerns about her work that you believe led to a specific patient's death). It seems like management would have already noticed a bunch of people dying when deaths are normally rare and looked into this, even if she's friends with the CNO. At my first ever nursing job (and my second-ever nursing job), deaths always seemed to come in threes.