Nurse Emptied Sharps Container!!!!

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Hello all!!! If anyone remembers a post I posted previously about the nurse that wore sandals to work, well, let me tell you she has done something else VERY STUPID!!!

This happened about 1 week ago, she laid a 1/2 Vicodin on the medicine cart that a student brought in that was not in a labeled medicine bottle actually it was in a Seroquel bottle. She laid it up there because she at the time was unsure as to what type of pill it was the student just told her it was a Vicodin. Well anyway, she layedit up there and forgot about it, the next night the RN supervisor asked her what happened to it and she told her where she layed it, and she went back to get it and guess what?! It wasn't there surprise, surprise. Well, she decided that someone might had put it in the sharps container, which is what should have been done with it anyway. So she donned a pair of gloves and was getting ready to stick her hand down in the container and I saw her and alerted the RN, she told her absolutely not to do this. Well, about 15 minutes later I was back over in the area she was at and I noticed a plastic bag layed there and I asked her what she was gonna do and she said , " I am going to dump the sharps out and look for the pill". I said, surely not and I alerted the RN supervisor again and she came over and said time and time again that she wished she didn't do this and she kept saying I'll be careful, I'll be careful. The RN was visibly getting upset. She finally just grabbed the sharps container after it was about 1/2 emptied out and said STOP!!! The nurse said I gotta find that pill. The RN said it was not that important and she wasn't even sure if that is where the pill was or not. Can you believe that?! Later that night the RN asked me to write up what I saw that way there was a "paper trail" and then the RN made the nurse write herself up for the incident. The nurse became very upset and has tried to start WWIII with her getting all the other nurses on her side. The place I work at is a state facility and the nurse is a state merit employee and it is just about impossible to get rid of one. I just wonder where this nurse got her license, a cracker jack box? Just thought I would see what everyone's feelings were on this. I think it is just plain stupid!!! I mean think of all the diseases!!!!

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the nurse that wore sandals to work

Must be crazy to do that!

I've heard several stories of needles dropping and a thick shoe being the saving grace.

Also, seems like a lost cause to dig a pill out of the sharps container. What's the use? Surely she didn't plan on anyone actually taking the pill after it had been mixed in with all the contaminated materials. Apparently she doesn't have much fear of catching disease. That or is just plain ignorant.

I'm thinking yes to the cracker jack box idea.

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Yeah..... but I'm sure she was thinking about her lost job if she gets accused of diverting. After reading through...SOME..not all.....of the posts on how nurses are looked upon regarding "missing" tablets or whatever..I'm not so sure I'd be totally against donning a pair of Titanium gloves and fishing in the sharps container myself. :chuckle

Obvioulsy her mind wasn't on the sharps container.

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all she had on was latex free gloves:rolleyes:

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Even if she found a 1/2 vicodan pill, how would she prove that it was hers, and not one put there a month ago?

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Even if she found a 1/2 vicodan pill, how would she prove that it was hers, and not one put there a month ago?

What are the chances she would have known of a 1/2 Vicodin put there a month ago?

And if she did know....if she's being accused of doing drugs and stealing them...wouldn't she have eaten the one in container a loooong time ago?

The old "what ifs".

And how many times a month is a sharps container supposed to get changed?

Just curious :)

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
was getting ready to stick her hand down in the container

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She shouldn't be ALLOWED NEAR the **** med cart , or heck in the building, if she's going to do something that **** stupid.

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It seems to me that this nurse was very afraid of being accused that she took the 1/2 pill. And with the "ratting " going on there, i can see why she wanted to dump the container out and use something to sift around to find it. Why don't you try to see the other side of things before you go running to the boss and causing trouble.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Why don't you try to see the other side of things before you go running to the boss and causing trouble.

"Trouble" would have happened if that nurse had stuck herself while trying to stick her hand in the sharps container, as she started to do. And THEN she would have wanted a workman's comp form after that!

And i would have ran to the boss too.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

I guess im confused,, why did a student bring her half a vicodin? Where did the student get it? Why was she giving it to the nurse? Why was it in a serroquel bottle? If the student brought it from home, why? Where was the instructor of the student to let her bring it into a work environment in a mislabeled bottle like that? If it was a patients pill that the patient refused part of, why wasnt it logged out as wasted immediately? Why would you drop a pill down a sharps container? Flush it down the hopper in the utility room or crush it and wash it down the drain.

But yes it was rediculously stupid for her to think going through the sharps container was acceptable. If nothing else she needs a suspension for ignoring the supervisors directive and pulling sharps out of the container anyway.

Actually it sounds to me like this gal needs a drug screen if she was that adament about finding that pill. She needed it that bad for a reason and it wasnt because it was lost! Talk about irratic behavior and dependance.

I'll stick my neck out here and say her behavior is probly not the first time she has gone through the sharps container. Do you use carpuject syringes by any chance?

Smilelingblueeyes,, i just read your post after mine, i think we are on the same page.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

The last time I knew a nurse to empty a sharps container, it was a case of a drug-addicted, narcotic- diverting nurse. It was very sad, very tragic. I did not judge her so much as I felt sorry for her patients not getting their meds (she diverted all kinds of things) and for her, that she was that desperate to dig in a sharps container for a potential fix. If you ask me, this behavior is HIGHLY suspicious; watch her, and watch out for YOURSELVES. :o

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Still makes no sense...if she wanted it that badly and she brought it in for her own use..then wouldn't she have noticed it gone before the question of "Where is it" was posed to her and gone through the container waay before?

We're clearly missing some "pieces" of the puzzle here. :coollook:

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