Sometimes it is so discouraging

[DrrTiDrr]

I work at a facility that is in turn around. I have been working double shifts along with coworkers to get things taken care of. (16 hours) Sometimes for 4-5 days a week because we are so short of staff. Recently we had some kind of viral break out. My supervisor gave a coworker a Lomotil because she had developed diarrhea. I have seen another supervisor do this as well. At any rate, this supervisor got suspended and who knows what is going to happen now. I understand that it was not the smartest thing to do, but, damn, it was a lomotil. I am concerned that this nurse, who is a really great nurse may lose her license. Is there anything other than moral support that I can do for her?

[morte, LPN, LVN]

lomotil or immodium?.....lomotil is a controlled substance.....and a BIG nogo...while the immodium is OTC....still tech not legal...

[DrrTiDrr]

No, it was a lomotil. I did contact her but she said that she was told not to discuss it while it was being investigated. I really hope it doesn't go to the nursing board, I have seen nurses seriously divert meds and just be asked to resign or be fired. It seems criminal to me because this seems so minor, although I totally understand in principle that it is not.

It just saddens me that there isn't a better system in place to deal with mistakes. Even though she is a supervisor this is a young (experience wise) nurse. It was a case of dumbassedness not maliciousness.

'

After 10 years in the field, I am just tired I guess.

[rachelgeorgina]

I have asthma and there have been 1 or 2 occasions where I've had an empty ventolin puffer at the same time I've had an asthma attack. On one occasion, a nurse simply pulled a ventolin puffer from the medication room for me, the second (we didn't have puffers) a nurse gave me a hudson mask and a 5mg of nebule of ventolin and I nebulised myself in my pod while my kids were asleep.

Legal? Probably not. But it saved having the facility to have to go full code on a massive asthma attack, which would have happened if there had been no ventolin on hand!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Lomotil is kept double-locked in the medication carts at my workplace because it is a controlled drug. A prudent nurse wouldn't give a controlled substance to a coworker for whom it wasn't prescribed, especially if the prudent nurse cared about keeping her licensure unblemished.

Giving Lomotil to a coworker who has complaints of diarrhea is akin to giving Vicodin to a coworker who has complaints of pain. They're both controlled substances, neither of which have been prescribed to the person who received them.