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!!!!
We used to throw wasted meds in our sharps containers, such as carpujects of Morphine, Dilaudid, etc. until someone caught one of the nurses picking through the contents of a sharp container to get them all. Now we always draw up the remaining medication and inject it down the sink...and needless to say, that nurse got fired.
The facility I used to work at, we crushed the pill if at all possible and two nurses watched it go down the sink drain, or if it was liquid we poured it down the drain, narcotic or not.
We used to throw wasted meds in our sharps containers, such as carpujects of Morphine, Dilaudid, etc. until someone caught one of the nurses picking through the contents of a sharp container to get them all. Now we always draw up the remaining medication and inject it down the sink...and needless to say, that nurse got fired.
I wouldn't put my hand in the sharps container for any reason!!
As for unused meds, I would rather have another nurse, or two, watch me get rid of it down the sink. Then, I would want their signatures saying they saw me dispose of it properly!
As for a urine test...who's to say if the Nurse took the pill that it was for her? She may sell them, have a friend or relative hooked on vicodin...whatever. So, a drug test may not have shown anything.
However, I agree, the nurse's actions sound a little suspicious!!
So she donned a pair of gloves and was getting ready to stick her hand down in the container
YIKES!!!! I can't believe that, wow. She obviously has no concern for her OWN safety, I can't even imagine how she treats her patients. That's so scary.
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.
Damn right I would have done the same thing and "ratted her out", as you call it.
Specializes in pedi, pedi psych,dd, school ,home health.
sounds to me more like stupidity than suspicion...:uhoh21: Some people are extremely intelligent with just no common sense!!! There definitely needs to be an inservice on proper disposal of meds (everywhere i have worked we flushed with another nurse and signed off as wasted..there was even a space in the med book for such an entry!)
I see many sticks caused by sticking a hand into a sharps container. One of our employees contracted Hepatitis C from such a stick. The sharps still had wet blood on it.
Hepatitis can live in dried blood too...it's a pretty hardy virus. Much better chance of getting hepatitis from a sharps box than just about anything else. Either way, she had no business sticking her hand into the sharps box...
I am not at all surprised to hear that someone would go through a sharps container to prove their story.
Yes, especially since she had been fired once before for suspicion of something similar. I think that is the key here. This nurse probably freaked that she was going to get fired again and potentially lose her license since it wouldn't be the first time. So, she lost her judgement and did something that most of us agree is foolhardy at best (emptying the sharps container). It is true, the sharps aren't going to jump out and attack you but we all know that despite our best efforts needle sticks do happen and putting yourself at risk for that is never a good idea.
All the rules and the policies sound a little outrageous to me.
KacyLynnRN
303 Posts
We used to throw wasted meds in our sharps containers, such as carpujects of Morphine, Dilaudid, etc. until someone caught one of the nurses picking through the contents of a sharp container to get them all. Now we always draw up the remaining medication and inject it down the sink...and needless to say, that nurse got fired.