Resident's rights

[remched]

I think I got myself into a sticky situation. I have worked at the ltc I am in for about 5 months as a perdiem. We have a FT LPN who has a real attitude problem. She curses and yells at anyone in her way. One night I was doing a treatment on a patient, and she started talking about this nurse. She said "this nurse" did a treatment on her the previous night and ripped off the old bandage until it hurt, yelled at the resident because she couldn't "help" this nurse more, and put a bandage on too tight (the resident ended up cutting it off herself). This resident, by the way, is alert and oriented x3. The resident then proceeded to tell me, "I think she tries to hurt me". I told the resident to speak to the director about this. Well, in speaking to the director myself (about a different matter), I told her about this incident because it was eating at me. I also told another nurse who was on duty at the same time that night, and she advised me to speak to the DON. The DON asked me if I would put it in writing. I felt compelled to do so, or it would look like I made it up. I want to be on the side of the residents, it's their home. But, now I am afraid this nurse will come after me. Did I do the right thing, or do you just turn the other way?

[lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN]

i do not understand what you mean, i believe in empowering residents and staff to improve ltc. by having such an open policy on abuse, everyone staff, residents, families, and consultant staff all understand what an important issue it is, and everyone knows what is tolerated and what is not. abuse is subjective, especially because we all come from different cultures and backgrounds, what may seem to be abusive to me, may not be seen as abuse by someone else, which is why investigations and obtaining statements are so important, that way no one is slandered by a complaint by a person who is upset or vindictive.

i was referring to people who are abusive. i'm a big fan of policies such as you described.

[Boston-RN, RN]

Can you say "MANDATORY REPORTING"

If anyone gives you a hard time (hopefully they wouldn't) you just state, I as a nurse am obligated by the nurse practice act to report ANY allegations of abuse by a resident. And I would fill out an incident report using objective language and quotes directly from the resident if they are A & O and do an assessment and list those findings.

Where the tricky parts come in is when you do your own kind of "survey" and ask people about her or talk to a bunch of people about what was reported in a judgemental or gossip-y type manner. That's you can get in trouble for liable/slander/defemation. Just take down what the resident said, make a report and monitor the patient.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

If you suspect abuse, you are mandated to report it. If you don't, you could be fired. We had to fire 5 people in one day....4 saw abuse and didn't say anything...that made them just about as guilty as the one doing the abusive thing.

I used to teach the 'hot potato' method of abuse reporting. If you see abuse, you certainly don't want to keep it to yourself...so pass that hot potato to your supervisor so you don't get burned.