What is the strangest thing you have caught patients and/or their family members attempting to steal from your place of work?
We've lost a lot of tympanic thermometers, sphygmomanometers, pulse oximeters throughout the years, linens commonly vanish, and last winter someone made it into our change-room (i.e. a closet with a coat rack and tiny lockers) on our unit and stole the evening shift staff's winter coats. *Sniffles* I miss my winter coat
But this week... This week, I caught a patient's adult daughter trying to steal our brand new bladder scanner (which costs over $20,000). This thing is huge and connected to a large apparatus on wheels, yet she was wheeling it towards the elevator with such confidence and ease. When staff members attempted to address the situation it was quite a Winona Ryder moment.
We've had our small, digital scales stolen a couple times. We use them to weigh infants' diapers. Presumably they are the same type of scale that dealers use to weigh drugs.
I did have a coworker years ago who lost her license after stealing a resident's clothes and a bedside table from the LTC facility we worked at... Eww.
As a postpartum nurse I was always baffled as to how some patients viewed a stay in the hospital to have a baby as being akin to "Supermarket Sweep." Taking the supplies left in the bassinette with you is one thing (they will be tossed by housekeeping when you leave), but the patients who purposely lied about needing supplies so they could hoard a huge stash before discharge just made me crazy.
I know that when I was having my oldest child, the nurses actually gave us a diaper bag and told us to put the diapers and such that was on my daughters bassinet in the bag to take home. I couldn't breastfeed and so she had to be supplemented. They gave us a case of that too to take with us (along with an awesome spaghetti dinner gift basket!! ). I thought that was the norm. With my second child, I thanked them and stated I had my own items. They were shocked. Bless them. They were a really awesome bunch!!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Work with a nurse in the ED who had her purse in a cabinet at a nurses station, a pt visitor took her keys out of her purse and stole her car. She was a bit livid 3 hours after her shift still waiting for pd to show up.
It was all on camera, thief was arrested, car was totaled.
My keys are in my pocket or locked in my locker!
BSN GCU 2014.
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How would the thief who took her keys know which car to steal?
How would the thief who took her keys know which car to steal?
Go out to the parking lot, walk up and down the rows while hitting the panic button on the key fob. The car that starts shrieking? That's the one you want.
Addendum: Oops, sorry Leigh, we must have been posting at the same time lol
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Go out to the parking lot, walk up and down the rows while hitting the panic button on the key fob. The car that starts shrieking? That's the one you want.
Addendum: Oops, sorry Leigh, we must have been posting at the same time lol
Maybe in a smaller hospital than mine. Mine has about 9 parking garages (all of them enormous) and a couple of lots. The thief could spend all danged night looking for the right car!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
One family stole an X-ray machine and tried to sell it . . . when they couldn't, they returned it. Sort of. The big hospital across town called one day to tell us they had our portable X ray machine. And we found one of their ocillascopes. (Yes, it was a long time ago.)
More recently, a family member stole the TV and microwave out of the family lounge and got caught when they were trying to wheel out the refrigerator on a dolly. Of course no charges were pressed -- that might give us a ding in our Press-Gainey scores! Someone also walked off with the 24 hour EEG set-up. Security had video of them walking it out to the parking garage, but a Black man in a hoody and jeans was all it showed -- not detailed enough to arrest anyone. I have no idea how many tens of thousands of dollars that cost.
Numerous staff have had purses and wallets stolen, and one night someone got into our locked break room and stole everyone's lunches. (Left the lunch bags, just took the lunches.)
When I gave birth to my daughter my mom took EVERYTHING from my hospital room. Diapers, formula, blankets, pillows etc. When I did my maternity rotation last semester the nurses were complaining about a patient hoarding all of the diapers and I was like "oh, I thought it was normal to take all of the diapers before you get discharged." Also, whenever I went for a physical growing up my mom would take alcohol wipes, gauze, band-aids....whatever was in the drawer.
One of our patients kept stealing ALL of the ketchup, mayo, and mustard packets.. I mean dumping them all into her purse. The lady stole large boxes worth of condiments.. She was told to stop several times during her stay. On her way out the door she did it again and was stopped by staff. She said it was how she "got by". Not sure what that means since she was one of our more well known wealthier patients.. Hope it helped her "survive" those hard times.
That is how she probably became wealthy. Never paid for anything-just lifted it due to entitlement issues.
I once had a patient who was not diagnosed with any dementia or anything! But let's just say he was weird!
Anyway... opened his bedside locker one day to find a sanitary towel bin in it!!!!! One of the big ones from public bathrooms that are sealed shut. . He had broke the peddle off it and everything to get it to fit in the locker!
Weirdest part... searched all the bathrooms he could have accessed... No bins missing !!????
). I thought that was the norm. With my second child, I thanked them and stated I had my own items. They were shocked. Bless them. They were a really awesome bunch!!
champagnesupeRNova
166 Posts
We've had our small, digital scales stolen a couple times. We use them to weigh infants' diapers. Presumably they are the same type of scale that dealers use to weigh drugs.