What else can be done about a nurse sleeping on duty??

I work as a charge nurse in an ICU. I am having a problem with a nurse sleeping while on duty. I'm not talking about sleeping while on her 30 minute, unpaid break but rather, sleeping for hours at a time, every single shift. She doesn't let anyone know, she just disappears into the computer room at the back of the unit or into the family conference room and sleeps. Her patient's end up being horribly neglected all night as a result and the other nurses on the unit end up picking up her slack by having to answer her call lights or silencing her pumps. Not too long ago, one of her patient's coded and, while I have no proof of this, I strongly suspect she was sleeping just before it happened. 

I have spoken directly to her about. I wake her up every time I find her sleeping. I have went to management about it. Nothing works. It seems like management couldn't care less about the situation and, since she keeps getting away with it, the behavior continues. I have no idea what to do about it now. I just feel like eventually a patient is going to be harmed and/or will die as a result of her sleeping. What would you do in this situation? 

[AllmanRN]

This has happened in my ICU unit also. The nurse is not getting fired. Even the two witnesses observed the charge, nurse, sleeping deeply, snoring, while she was actually watching the telemetry monitors for the entire ICU, and MedSurg floors. The other witness told the house supervisor, and I told the ICU manager! nurse was not fired, even though there has been one many events that she has done. normally she does not watch the monitors but the monitor tech had to leave and left the charge nurse to watch them. She is an older nurse and has a lot of other issues, including hearing loss- where she can't even hear her pumps going off in the rooms and we have to  go check on her patients because she can't hear. It's very frustrating, and I do not know the reason that she has not been fired because we had multiple codes in the last few days that she actually fell asleep.

[Gratefulbutnotstupid, ASN, LPN, RN]

This has happened in so many different units.  We had an older RN who meant well but could not keep up with her work.  I went to the Nurse Manager and told her what was happening.  I stressed that she had thrived in the organization for years and had been a good mentor.  I also stressed that all of the staff would like to see her retire with an unblemished record. She deserved that, but first the Nurse Manager had to do her job and convince the nurse to retire with dignity.  This had to be done before some negative outcome occurred.  In the meantime all the staff had banded together to cover her patients and insure their safety.   2 days later the RN announced she was retiring immediately.  We had a lovely retirement party and she lived a good long life.  The Nurse Manager did her job.

Nurses who do not do their job for any reason need to be reported to the Supervisor.  To not do so would be unethical.  We owe the patients honest good care.  If anything interferes with this the staff have to put patients first and report the problem.