What are the chances of me being fired?

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I am fairly a new nurse its going to be a year in January since I've been working. I work in LTAC and I have been ok for 6 months until my new manager started working. She is my new manager and she doesn't know me because I work nights and in the past 2 months I have had 3 patients fall out of bed for me and 1 needlestick injury. My last patient had soft wrist restraints and had bed alarms and he still fell for me. Yet the nurse before me had him in a chair all day long and nothing happened to him. I later found that one of the restraints had come loose and he was able to use his free hand and undo his other restraint. Anyway, everybody says not to worry about this but realistically, what will happen to me?

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Specializes in LTC, Disease Management, smoking Cessati.

Why do you think something will happen? Fall and accidents happen, do they have a zero tolerance and hire only "Perfect" nurses? Relax.

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Specializes in nursing education.

Was he also wearing a waist or vest restraint though? We never used wrist restraints without restraining the torso also, for safety.

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Specializes in ICU.

Just be sure you always follow the restraint policy and procedure for your facility. This includes the scheduled checks, charting and documenting. This protects you and the patient.

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How many patients are you responsible for... how many assistants do you have?

I have a very strong feeling you are in .. a seriously UNDERSTAFFED facility.

This is brutal way to earn experience. Don't blame yourself... blame the facility.

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

Why blame the facility because the nurse made a mistake? She didn't say she was over worked, she said she had falls and a needle stick. Time to stop placing blame and start figuring out how to fix it and how to stop making the same mistakes. Falls are a way of life. The best we can do is have interventions in place so the patient doesn't get hurt. And wrist restraints are usually NOT the answer.

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Specializes in ED, ICU, MS/MT, PCU, CM, House Sup, Frontline mgr.

op: if you feel like you are on the chopping block, you may be correct. instincts can speak louder than gossips. therefore you may need to be proactive and meet with your manager to discuss concerns related to the errors. are they policy or environment related or is it just you? in any case, maybe there can be some solution you can discuss with your manager that can result in positive changes. otherwise, start looking for another job.

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Specializes in LTC.

What Cape said....you can check on a res one minute and they fall before the next time you are supposed to check on them or five mins out the door...

Nothing's gonna happen to you. Sounds normal to me..now if you had said I've made 10 med errors, 20 charting errors and I'm late everyday....I'd worry

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Specializes in LTC.
in the past 2 months I have had 3 patients fall out of bed for me ?

Ha! I had three yesterday. Don't sweat it. Sometimes, there's not too much you can do to avoid them, especially somewhere where restraints and sitters are not an option. ;)

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I think you're fine.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Honestly, sometimes I don't think you can prevent a fall for the simple reason that you can't be everywhere at once. It's not like ICU where you have 1 or 2 patients! We get confused patients all the time that want to get out of bed, but aren't strong enough etc and then if you don't have a sitter all you can do is try your best, but sometimes it's just not possible to keep them in bed and safe.

As for needlesticks, even with safe needles, accidents can happen. Also sometimes freak accidents happen that you can't control. A person moved his arm while I was assessing him and doing his BP and his bloody thumb went into my eye as he moved his arm.

I'm sure others can tell of freak things that happend to them.

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Specializes in LPN.

Isn't new management fun? Love being on night shift, because you aren't there to defend yourself. Eventually they will get to know you. But, I agree with you it is pretty daunting to have new management, and not to have met them. They can form all kinds of weird ideas.

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