Nursing Home - Abandonment?

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I have a friend who is a LVN at a nursing home, she recently confided in me that the nursing home has asked her to leave one hour early because they have a low patient census. She is the only nurse besides the ADON who is working and the only nurse on the floor. The next shift does not start until 2 p.m. She is very uncomfortable with this as am I for her. Is this patient abandonment if she is not officially relieved from duty? This is certainly not safe for the patients! Any ideas or suggestions?

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She was technically relieved by the ADON. It also wasn't her decision to leave. I can't see there being any repercussion (against the nurse being asked to leave early) to following the employer's direction here. If I were that nurse, I'd be pissed off getting shorted an hour's pay more than anything.

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The ADON is either a LVN or RN herself. In LTC, a single licensed nurse can cover an entire facility on their own. Therefore, no, this is not abandonment.

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Patient abandonment, pure and simple, unless the ADON is in the building and she reports off to the ADON. You can't leave all those residents there looking after themselves for an hour.

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I took the OP's post as saying the ADON was, indeed, in the building. And if the ADON was the one to send the LVN home, I'm sure a report-off of some sort happened.

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Make it a point to report off to the ADON, hand over the keys, and that would solve that issue.

You may want to look for a per diem to make up for the 5 or so hours a week you are losing in pay.

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Specializes in Assisted Living nursing, LTC/SNF nursing.

That seems to be a typical analogy if trying to reduce hours d/t census. As long as a nurse is in the building and narc's are counted with that said nurse along with reporting off, that is okay. Not ideal for you since you depend on those hours generally but that is the way of healthcare, especially in LTC setting.

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
I have a friend who is a LVN at a nursing home, she recently confided in me that the nursing home has asked her to leave one hour early because they have a low patient census. She is the only nurse besides the ADON who is working and the only nurse on the floor. The next shift does not start until 2 p.m. She is very uncomfortable with this as am I for her. Is this patient abandonment if she is not officially relieved from duty? This is certainly not safe for the patients! Any ideas or suggestions?

To ease her mind, your friend should check with the state BON to see what the BON considers abandonment.

Generally, if you hand over your patient care via report to another qualified provider before leaving and the provider accepts responsibility for the patient(s), you have not committed abandonment. If your friend was told by the facility to leave and she reported off on her patients to the ADON before she departed, then she didn't do anything wrong.

But if your friend just waltzed out without telling the ADON (unless of course, it was the ADON who told her to go home), then that could be construed as abandonment.

I would tell her that if this happens again that she makes it a point to give report to the ADON before going, just to cover herself and be safe.

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