Sexual Misconduct at work

[evilolive]

I am an RN supervisor on night shift. I recently had a situation where one of my male CNAs spanked a female CNA in front of me. I immediately called my ADON for advice, seeing as I have not had to deal with this type of personnel issue yet.

I was told to separate the CNAs for the night, so I 'traded' an upstairs CNA for the spanker. I received statements from both CNAs and wrote one myself. My ADON assured me that she would be reporting this situation to "corporate," and basically told me that my female CNA needs to be up front with the other CNA and outright tell him "NO."

I'm just curious if any of you have had to deal with any situations like this, and how your facility handled it. My ADON seemed to think that he wouldn't be punished, so to say, since it is a first offense. Have you found this to be the case or was termination immediate?

Thanks,

A curious RN

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

I probably would have handled the situation differently.

First, you never know what kind of relationships people have outside of work and it's never good to assume that there is or isn't one.

I would have privately addressed the situation with the male CNA, and tell him, "I'm not really sure what was up with that, but it's not appropriate for a professional environment and I would appreciate it if you didn't do that again."

If the female CNA said nothing, then I would not draw the conclusion it was a problem unless she did.

I don't think it needed to go any higher than that, nor should he be punished any more than being told it's not appropriate.

However, if she had complained about his behavior, then THAT is a whole other issue.

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

The female CNA did not appreciate the spanking at all. She has told me that she can cope with getting comments and brush them off, but she does not like anyone touching her. These two aides have been known to joke in the past

but she is getting more and more frustrated with the comments whenever they work together. I'll have to be frank with her this week about making her feelings known to the spanker.

Fortunately the male CNA did appear extremely remorseful, but he began to make excuses and lie about the situation. I read over his statement and I got upset about the fact that he could not just "man up" to the situation. I guess this is human nature, however.

I'm sorry, I missed this post (it was too late to edit).

Once she told you that what he is doing makes her uncomfortable, it no longer her problem to fix, it becomes the hospital's. She only needs to tell him NO one time...if it continues, then the facility has failed to protect her.