Violation of privacy

Nurses Recovery

Published

I recently received a letter from the board of nursing informing me that the process for collecting urine. Now the tech. will have to actually watch as I void. I understand some people may cheat but not every body. Is this a violation of my rights to privacy? If it is so very important for the lab to be certain of specimen processing than why not take blood? Can I fight here, have my constitutional rights being violated?

Specializes in LTC, Psych, Med/Surg.
I would think that you would just want to follow the rules and get on with your life.

Agree, that's its not too cool to have someone watch you pee, but as another poster says, it happens in the military all the time. I was in the Navy in the late 70's and pregnant to boot and still had to have a "monitor" watch me pee! Ugh.

Fighting this will probably get you nowhere and nowhere near a job.

You are absolutely correct. Either do what they say or surrender your license. That is the reality.

Catmom :paw:

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Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

I have never been observed during my specimen collections. Ever. Been in this monitoring program since August 2008. I guess each state has their own rules about collecting urines. I would be quite angry about the extra $26 fee....in my program, that would amount to $76 a month for the testing, which is a lot when you add up the monthly fees paid to the BON, the fees for the nurse support group, fees for Aftercare, fees for counseling, etc. Especially if one is not working!

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Specializes in Med Surg,.

That is my point exactly, another $26.00 for what? To watdh me void? This is a rip off. I will abide but what will be the next rule the lab and the baords cohort to drum up business and extra expenses to the poor struggling nurses.

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i don't know your full background but let’s consider the facts...you're being monitored for a reason. maybe for you the reason is unjustifiable? but the bon obviously disagrees. if i was being monitored, i'd be jumping through any hoop that would save my license! i have worked far too hard to earn it and wouldn't want to lose it over a technicality that simply "****** me off" (sorry for the pun).

recovery is about finding humility, not to be confused with humiliation. the quality of recovery is directly proportional to the quality of one’s ability to surrender. from the outside looking in, you might be still fighting for control. let go, change your perspective, this is a short term thing while it might seem like forever right now, the truth is it’s not. one door might have closed but another will open...in the mean time, it tends to be "hell in the hallway." hang in there, do your drops and walk in with integrity.

how many times as a nurse have you had to take a urine sample from a patient or place a foley, and inside they felt the same way you do in regards to this situation? the humiliation, specifically?

you can do this, and it will get better. just adjust your perspective!!

ralph waldo emerson once said; "life is not so much a matter of position as of disposition."

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

I just received the same letter and I like you have lost EVERYTHING (car's already gone), can't find a nursing job so the increased price bothers me more than anything. Unfortunately we are not at a "negotiating table" with the bon and we have to follow the rules that they set for us. You have come this far don't let this new collection method stop you from achieving your goal. I agree with the others when they say fighting this is useless save your fight for something else!

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Specializes in Med Surg,.

Of course I will abide, I will give up my pee, allow all to watch, pay my penitence, stay clear of hand sanitizer, food coloring, soy sauce, fabreeze, all sorts of controlled substances, alcoholic beverages, call in every day, get my employer to write what ever of my performance, report to the board as told to, but I will never stop complaining about the way nurses allow other nurses to get dogged. Nurses are the worst for standing-up and defending their peers. We would just assume see them pay with their lives, their dignity, and did some one say humility. What other profession speaks this doggedly about their peers.

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Specializes in ICU, Dialysis.

I too received the dreaded "we're making you pay $76 per test just to be observed" letter yesterday (I am in NC). I can barely afford the $50 they now charge and come Jan 2011 it's going to be $76. I try not to get bummed and discouraged but this is getting crazy with the BON. I figured it up the other day and I have spent $1200 in urine drug tests in 1 year, so by the time I am done with CDDP I will have spent well over $5000 just for drug testing. Right now we just have to live by the BON rules as they control our entire life.:rolleyes:

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Of course I will abide, I will give up my pee, allow all to watch, pay my penitence, stay clear of hand sanitizer, food coloring, soy sauce, fabreeze, all sorts of controlled substances, alcoholic beverages, call in every day, get my employer to write what ever of my performance, report to the board as told to, but I will never stop complaining about the way nurses allow other nurses to get dogged. Nurses are the worst for standing-up and defending their peers. We would just assume see them pay with their lives, their dignity, and did some one say humility. What other profession speaks this doggedly about their peers.

Maybe you're referring to the BON and how their monitoring practices come across as doggedly? IMHO, they should be, they are there to protect the patients from "us". We are all posting on this forum for a reason, because we made bad choices. Like it or not. Now that we are sober the rules we have to follow seem overbearing and maybe they are but they are one of the consequences for our choices.

In my history of drug tests, in high school for athletics or for preemployment screenings or within treatment....the specimen has always been observed. Just so you know, maybe this practice is new within BON specimen drops-that in your area I can't comment on.

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Specializes in Med Surg,.

do you realize there is no such thing as protecting patients? are you so serious? is your nursing experience so narrow that you do not realized the atrocities imposed by healthcare on the human life? do you believe the tuskegee experiment were druggies? are kidding me? please do your homework darling. wrong limbs cut off from clients. how many received the wrong blood? the clients who were given the wrong heart? anyway, i am a correctional nurse. the inmates have better rights than any freed american. they have the right to sue nurses, correctional officials at the expense of freed american. if mlk did not help fight for my rights i would not have rights as a freed/half way free person. not everyone is here because they are drug addicts. not every inmate in jail is guilty. it has been proven over and over and perhaps my situation makes me mad and indifferent enough to feel wrongly imprisoned, wrongly accused, wrongly sentenced.

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I see individuals post these threads all the time, about how they're being abused and mistreated by their BON in their state's impaired nurse program. Perhaps you are new enough to nursing that you're not aware that all of these programs are (trying to be) an improvement over the old system of dealing with an "impaired nurse" situation, which was that you lose your license, period, no questions asked, no second chances, end of story. You are being offered an opportunity to get your license back and resume your career. If you don't want that opportunity, you don't have to take it.

Nurses may be, as you say, "the worst for standing up and defending their peers," but nursing is widely regarded as the best about protecting the public from impaired practitioners and policing our own ranks -- much better than physicians, lawyers, psychologists, clergy, etc. I think that's a good thing, and something I'm proud of as a nurse.

This is a responsibility and obligation that all professions owe to the public, and I'm proud that we do the best job of it.

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I think aspects of these recovery programs are instituted specifically because they are humiliating. The truth is that our society has zero sympathy or empathy for recovering addicts. Boards of nursing were pressured to put recovery programs into place, but they must have gone kicking and screaming! Okay, fine, we'll take him/her back, but first we are going to heap on some additional misery so he/she is reminded everyday for 3 to 5 years that he/she failed as a nurse and as a human being in general.

That written, I will happily endure whatever HPRP sends my way. Someday, I'll be completely past this and might find myself in a position to show a little mercy to another nurse who beat addiction. That will be the ultimate revenge!

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I see individuals post these threads all the time, about how they're being abused and mistreated by their BON in their state's impaired nurse program. Perhaps you are new enough to nursing that you're not aware that all of these programs are (trying to be) an improvement over the old system of dealing with an "impaired nurse" situation, which was that you lose your license, period, no questions asked, no second chances, end of story. You are being offered an opportunity to get your license back and resume your career. If you don't want that opportunity, you don't have to take it.

Nurses may be, as you say, "the worst for standing up and defending their peers," but nursing is widely regarded as the best about protecting the public from impaired practitioners and policing our own ranks -- much better than physicians, lawyers, psychologists, clergy, etc. I think that's a good thing, and something I'm proud of as a nurse.

This is a responsibility and obligation that all professions owe to the public, and I'm proud that we do the best job of it.

Oh blech! If we were so good at it, we'd have far fewer addicted nurses to begin with. Support struggling nurses instead of parading your "We eat our Young" t-shirts.

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