suspended, what to do?

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My husband got his LVN right at 9 months ago. His first job was an awful lct place; he left after 6 months, along with half the staff because the ratios went from 60:1 to 90:1. He got hired pretty quickly at a rehab facility as a treatment nurse, and while he enjoys and does well with the actual treatment part of his job, he's struggling with a lot of the supervisory stuff- he's not an ADON, he's not expirienced enough to be an ADON, but the ADONs took advantage and he's been doing a lot of staffing and reports that aren't really his responsibility. It's not effecting his job performance, but he's been in overtime most weeks and the brand new DON and he discussed it Monday, and he resolves to do better in the future, and they put some measures in place to help with that. Otherwise, they've been happy with him.

Then yesterday this happened; he was in a patient room and 2 aides came charging out of the room next door with the patient hollering about abuse. My husband was the nearest nurse, and he told the aides to immediately go tell the DON what happened. He then finished up the treatment he was doing, then went in and talked to the patient and did a head to toe assessment. He found nothing wrong, and the patient admitted that they didn't actually hurt her; she was just uncomfortable with men changing her diaper so threw a fit. He then reported it to the DON, who immediately told him to go home until the investigation was concluded and not to contact the facility until they called him.

He apparently should have escorted the aides to the DON rather than asses the patient, which, as a layperson, makes no sense to me. I also think that some on the spot retraining would've been enough, but there was a person from corporate in the office, so the DON said she had no choice. The ADON felt really sorry for him, and, incidentally, Monday (right after that talk about OT) they asked him to stay over to lead an investigation regarding a much more serious allegation (also false).

So do we start sending out resumes again or should he be back to work by the end of the week?

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I fail to understand why he was suspended. If anything, the two assistants should have been suspended. As bad as it sounds, would not be a bad idea for him to start looking.

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Supposedly for 'violation of company policy' because he didn't drop everything and report directly to the DON

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Ridiculous!

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By sending the CNAs to tell the DON, he was attending to the matter. It would have been inappropriate for him to drop something important to run to the office, when he was going to go in a few minutes anyway. Once he is secure that he has a new job, he needs to resign from this place before they fire him. Not a good place to work when they suspend a nurse for nothing. The DON could have handled the matter by admonishing him to "Drop everything, and run to me". Instead they didn't even take into consideration that he went into the room, talked to the resident, and did his job, to assess her for injuries. Dumb bunnies.

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Specializes in Psychiatry.
Supposedly for 'violation of company policy' because he didn't drop everything and report directly to the DON

UGH.. pt safety has taken a back seat in today's medical world. WTH?? It's all about these nonsense policies now?

I always thought the pt/resident came FIRST. Silly me :eek:

Sorry this happened. I hope everything turns out fine for him.

All the best,

Diane

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Thanks for all the responses, it helps to know that my husband didn't do anything terrible. I do get the CYA part and all that, but it's still frustrating.

Is there any way to know how long the suspension will last? Are we talking end of the week, the month, or do we need to apply for unemployment?

It's sad because we're supposed to sign up for benefits by Friday, and I don't know if it would be inappropriate to go ahead and do that while he's on suspension, and his step-mother worked PRN for the same company so he was leaning on her a lot mentor-wise and she passed 2 weeks ago.

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If I were him I would prepare to be told that he has no job. That is usually what happens to people who are suspended. At least it seems to happen more often than not. If I were him, I would also start to look for a new job. Job hunt every day full time so that he has a jump on the firing, if that is what happens.

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