Nurse manager says you can't refuse iv

[paintedbison]

This is at a hospital a friend of mine works at. She said the nurse manager in L&D says you can't refuse an iv access in labor. She said you can refuse the fluids, but not the iv access. Is their any truth to this whatsoever? I don't see how this can possibly be legally correct...

[jhhrn68]

If you give a patient an injection against their wishes, you can be charged with battery so I would assume the same would hold true for IV access.

[yiyayiya]

The part of the hospital is irrelevant, any patient can refuse any treatment that they do not wish regardless of the consequences. I have a list as long as my arm of treatments which I refuse to have under any circumstances and there is nothing the medical staff can do about it. If they force them they will be in court for battery and in front of the medical disciplinary council. Its my body and I decide what happens to it, noone else

[VICEDRN, BSN, RN]

I am certain that any patient that is not intoxicated, psychotic or otherwise under the supervision of a 1013 (psych hold order) can refuse any treatment they like even if they have signed a blanket consent upon admission.

The only note I will add here is that as an ER nurse it is hard for me to understand the logic of an argument that goes something like "if we need one in an emergency...". As you can imagine, we put in a lot of ivs on people who are dead or near dead in the er. Its usually not a problem. If it is, we take out an IO gun and drill them a line in their leg. Tell your management to ge an IO gun if she is really freaked out about "emergencies." ;-D