sacrifical lamb=triage nurse

Altra, BSN, RN · May 17, 2007

I'd very much like to read this story, but when I click on the link I find that the LA Times has restricted that particular story to registered users only.

Is there another link? Has the story been picked up by any national wire services?

Uptoherern, RN · May 17, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kingharbor15may15,0,455428.story?coll=la-home-center

see if this works. This second article actually gives more info than the first article, but I still would bet you my charge nurse differential pay (75 cents), that the nurse put on leave was the triage nurse; and the waiting room was probably equivelant to Dante's Inferno.

Altra, BSN, RN · May 17, 2007

Thanks for the link, erdiane.

That article doesn't address someone being placed on administrative leave. But, without any other information, I'd agree w/you, it would probably have been a triage nurse.

And I also think you're correct in your assessment of the waiting room/gates of hell.

Can't wait to see other posts on this thread declaring "SHAME". :trout:

scattycarrot, BSN, RN · May 17, 2007

Unless you have been out on triage, you cannot appreciate the sheer hell that can be triage. The reponsibility is amazing. Having to make important decisions with limited time and information,as well as resources! Family and patients, understandbly, think their problem is the most urgent and do not understand why they should have to wait. They cannot see that the ER is full to bursting and the tiage nurse is just trying to keep it from going under. This is a tragic story and I feel for the family. In a perfect world,she would have been treated immediatly but as the previous post said,I bet it was heaving in that waiting room and in the ER. BUT unless the powers that be, provide their staff with the resources they need,this will continue to happen....and nurses will continue to be blamed. You wonder about the triage nurses assessment but on the other hand,I have been there when you are the only nurse and you have patients with cardiac chest pain, babies with high temps and swollen fontanelles,patients having seizures....all at once (you think they could take it in turns;)!). You try and priortize but we are only human. There but for the grace of god,go I.

anne74 · May 17, 2007

Too bad the ED only receives attention when a tragedy happens. And no mention of the thousands of lives they've saved and the conditions they put up with on a daily basis, with few resources and support. There are too many pts who cry wolf for attention, making it hard to break through the clutter and identify the pts who really immediate help. This article is extremely slanted, making it sound like the ED employees don't care. Highly doubtful. I'd like to see the average public deal with the working conditions of an inner-city ED just for a few hours, let alone a whole shift. They just don't get it.

It's the system - not the people. And no one seems to want to support improving the system - just blame those who are in the trenches with no reserves.

bill4745, RN · May 18, 2007

In our ER, triage takes placed behind a locked door to the Waiting Room, with a small window that the triage nurse can barely see what's going on.

40 hours per week, we have a paramedic in the WR who greets patients and reassesses people who are waiting. The other 144 hours, we have ER techs, volunteers, and sometimes NO ONE in the WR. There have been times when I have been in triage that a person turning blue has been pounding on the triage door, begging for help. Yes, someone will die in our Waiting Room someday. And the triage nurse will be blamed for not doing the impossible.

TazziRN, RN · May 18, 2007

Another death in the ER waiting room. The article doesn't explain the situation very well, but it seems to me that the hospital is telling the reporter, Look! We DID do something! See? We placed the NURSE on administrative leave!
Now I know I may be seeing something that isn't there, but this is how it appears to me. Give us more to do with less, and when something goes wrong because of it, well, blame us!
GRRRR
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kingharbor16may16,1,2218046.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Wow......sounds like what happened to me, except the pt in my case didn't expire. I was the sacrificial lamb and lost my job last week.

LilPeanut, MSN, RN, NP · May 18, 2007

Well, in the article, it does say that the hospital lost its accreditation, has had numerous problems with poor and discriminatory patient care; there are occasionally times when the negative press is warranted.

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · May 18, 2007

When I read the article it said the patient had been seen several times in the past week, and in fact had just been released when she complained of increased pain, and started writhing around on the floor, probably with impressive sound effects.

If I had been the triage nurse, AND if I knew she had been seen multiple times by multiple docs in the last week, and had a history of drug abuse, she would have been retriaged as a 4 and encouraged to expect a long wait. Wrong call, obviously, but she had just been seen.

Given 5 or 6 people that are complaining of incredible pain and haven't even been seen once vrs someone who just got worked up, and discharged I'll get everyone seen once before starting at the end of the line again. If she was cussing or creating a disturbance, yep, I'd call the police.

It's a horrible tragedy, but I can absolutely see it happening with the most attentive and sympathetic triage nurse.

scattycarrot, BSN, RN · May 18, 2007

Wow......sounds like what happened to me, except the pt in my case didn't expire. I was the sacrificial lamb and lost my job last week.

I am sad to hear that this has happened to you. Good luck with your next endeavor and I hope that the your next place of work appreciates and supports you!

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · May 18, 2007

Those frequent complaints over the past week -- kinda makes me wonder if she was ever worked up appropriately, which would not be the domain of the triage nurse anyway.

But I've read articles about this sorry hospital in the past few years. The medical mistakes that have happened there go way beyond poor staffing.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kingdrew23sep23,0,885360.story?page=2

The county has scrambled to fix problems at the hospital, taking some form of disciplinary action against 650 employees since January 2004, more than a quarter of its staff. More than 250 employees, 41 of them doctors, have been fired or resigned under investigation, according to a Sept. 15 memo from the county Department of Human Resources.