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!!!!
z's my guess is she knew exactly where it was. But it was a real good excuse to go through the sharps container looking for any wasted partially filled syringes she could pocket.
Ok, let me clear up a few things. I work in a rehabilitation school where students between 17-60 come in for rehab. The students are quad's, TBI, Learning Disability ect. They come in for Eval and stay from Monday to Thursday initially and they go through some tests to see what kind of trade they are best suited for depending on their disability. Then when a opening comes up in their trade they come back for training sometimes lasting up to 1 year. They bring in their own meds and they have to turn them in to the Medical Housing Unit and the meds are distributed by nursing only. They may keep OTC meds in their rooms as long as they are locked up and they don't share with others. Most just come down to us for Tylenol, Motrin ect. This nurse was supposedly fired from her last job for problems with narcotics missing. So it just makes you wonder. I didn't necessarily go to the boss like you are stating, the RN was in the same room and she overheard me asking the nurse what she was doing and she got up and came over to where we were standing. The student put the 1/2 Vicodin in her Seroquel bottle and said that was what it was but we had no way of knowing definately. The RN wanted the pill put up in the Narc box and it was supposed to go back home with the student on Thursday when she went home and what she done with it at home was her concern. I hope this clears up any confusion.
If I knew everyone was talking about me I would have been willing to empty the sharps container too, just to clear my name. I've also come to work in sandals, when I forgot my shoes and it was too early to find an open store. Maybe she is odd beyond these two occurances....
Not obeying the supervisor is peculiar, but I would be very clear about wanting to clear my name, and not just go ahead in spite of what she said.
If I knew everyone was talking about me I would have been willing to empty the sharps container too, just to clear my name. I've also come to work in sandals, when I forgot my shoes and it was too early to find an open store. Maybe she is odd beyond these two occurances....
Not obeying the supervisor is peculiar, but I would be very clear about wanting to clear my name, and not just go ahead in spite of what she said.
:) I was beginning to think I was loco for seeing the other side!
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
So digging in a sharps container to clear suspicion is worth it? I disagree. I would have self-submitted to a urine test myself, not risked my health, digging thru sharps containers. I remember about 4 years ago, a ketamine went (temporarily) missing....long story--it was found and no foul play was going on. But we did not know that at the time......anyhow.... I and the other coworkers on shift self-submitted to urinalyses before we went off, to clear ourselves immediately. I have no problem doing that to keep myself in the clear and on the up and up. Sorry, I think digging in sharps containers to find a A PILL is over the top, not to mention potentially hazardous! Wonder what OSHA might say to people doing this?
Hell, I would have done both. But finding the missing narc right away would be preferable, in my opinion. As for diseases- I'd rather be dead with a clear name, and showing the accusers they were wrong would be worth a little danger too :)
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Oh, gee, I dunno---it just seems to me, dying of AIDS or hepatitis does not appeal, even if to clear my name. I know I am innocent, that in the end, is what matters. Self-submitting would go a long way toward exhibiting my innocence in such a case. And my truest friends, and family would vouch for me. And I would hope my coworkers would, too. But if not, I would know I did no wrong. That would have to be enough for me, and them.
Arg, it's one thing to EMPTY OUT a sharps box on a table to look for a pill, totally differenty to STICK YOUR HAND IN IT to look for a pill. Only an idiot would put their hand in a box like that to sift around for a pill!
"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."
I'm confused.......either it was NOT in a labeled medicine bottle or it was in a Seroquel bottle. Which one? Can't be both.
Why did the student bring it in and give it to the nurse in the first place?
When questioned further the nurse should have just honestly said, "I don't know what happened to it." Apparently another shift or two had went by before the supervisor came back and asked about it again. Maybe the next nurse got rid of it.....that happens at my facility all the time. I see pills in cups that the previous nurse has left in the med cabinet....I get rid of them. Who knows what they are.....you can make a guess but you don't really know. I say chunk em.
meownsmile, BSN, RN
2,532 Posts
z's my guess is she knew exactly where it was. But it was a real good excuse to go through the sharps container looking for any wasted partially filled syringes she could pocket.