suspended for elopement

caliotter3 · Sep 9, 2017

Did you give your statement? If so, all you can do is to wait it out unless you want to resign. If you don't resign, they might terminate you. You never should have given your badge to the nurse and now you know why. Ask her if she is going to be a good reference for you when you seek new employment. It will be interesting to see what she is going to tell you.

Mary2017 · Sep 9, 2017

Yes I explained that I let her use my badge I think she got distracted and resident got out it's was my fault for letting her use it . It's been 5 days and no response from my work so you think they will terminate me I better resign?

caliotter3 · Sep 9, 2017

Normally, if they were going to terminate you, it would have happened quicker than this. Is the nurse also suspended? Just curious. Maybe wait it out. Sorry, can't give you better advice. Either way, you would have a hard time getting a new job, but if they don't terminate you, you might be able to ride this out. If you survive this, I would look for a new job in about 6 - 9 months. Good luck.

Wuzzie · Sep 9, 2017

What a rotten lesson to learn from just trying to be helpful. Sorry you got sucked into this. Hang in there.

Mary2017 · Sep 9, 2017

I don't yet if she was suspended too it won't be fair since we were both responsible .

amoLucia · Sep 16, 2017

NO!!

OP - you were primarily being responsible for giving your ID card to another employee. That was a MAJOR error, regardless if a pt eloped or not.

The nurse most likely will also be disciplined because she SHOULD have had her own ID on (per facility policy) and she borrowed yours (against facility policy). That's 2 strikes against her.

Now the major issue is that patient elopement is known as a 'sentinel event' and must be reported to your state DOH. For 2 hours, your facility had no idea where your pt was. They SHOULD HAVE KNOWN - bottom line. It was lucky that all was OK with him.

There probably will be an in-depth internal facility house investigation. And most likely, the DOH will be doing their own investigation. The fact that a breach in security occurred with you and the nurse makes the situation more serious. Anytime the DOH has to come out for a serious event such as this, the facility risks some degree of 'disciplining' by the DOH. And depending on circumstances, that discipline can be SUPER SERIOUS.

Also, remember that the family becomes involved in a round-about way. To them, you lost their Pop Pop. They counted on you to keep him safe and secure, and he wandered outside. How would you consider it if a child care center/babysitter lost your child? Same thing

I have worked at facilities who had pt deaths occur after elopements. It was no wonder that they had super strict security measures in place for the pts and staff there.

It is sucky that you were just trying to be nice and got caught in a bad situation. When you talk with your Administration/supervisors, you should just focus on your own fault re giving someone your ID and the event that really happened because of it. You never meant for anything so serious to happen. And you have learned your lesson re security.

Good luck to you.

Orion81RN · Nov 30, 2017

For next employment, when having to explain this during an interview, Id briefly with no defensive tone state that you allowed your nurse to use your badge and that you learned from that, would never do it again and move onto the next topic. And don't state the pt was gone 2 hours ;-)

I wouldn't hold back from hiring someone from something as silly as allowing your nurse to use your badge. Especially after learning from it.