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.
The entire COW, cart & all. Wheeled right out ER past security station. Guard caught them in parking lot.
Crash cart....just stole the D50 & epi.
One frequent flyer always came in with 10 piece designer luggage (hard side mostly). We called for more linen & linen manager said he'd just filled both our empty carts, including 10 pillows each. Well, we had NONE. Not even a washcloth! Security checked cameras & trotted to her room, got keys & husband so police could get in her RV. She had it about 1/2 full of our linens!
Worked one place and the only locked doors were to the med rooms & the manager's office. We gave report in break room. We actually had family come in one night & demand to know when we were leaving so they had somewhere to hang out! One guy reached in fridge & swiped a lunch bag in front of us, peeked in it & said that looked ok, so he took it & left. I never brought my lunch. The fridge clearly stated for staff only, but the only place sacred was in our locked locker! And I heard they opened the ones without locks nightly looking for stuff.
I'm a relatively new nurse so I have yet to observe much in the way of people stealing things but I did have one that was very odd and turned into this huge problem. We had a couple give birth who were on the "watch them carefully" list as they had been reported to the state for drug use. Long story short, Dad stole baby's cup of poo that I collected...fortunately I still had a whole "crapload" in the trash. Don't know what he thought he was going to accomplish by stealing the poo other than even more suspicion. In the end, dad got banned from the hospital and all the kids got taken away from them. Damn druggies...
I think what gets me is the weird crap people come in with and that we have to lock up. One lady I swear had an entire book collection, I think some knives, basically she brought two suitcases and then when she left ama, through everything around the room and didn't take anything with her...
Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
I have seen old school telephones stolen from or local community hospital.And a shower head!Someone also put some chain around the ATM once and tried to jack it.They lost their bumper in the attempt.
In the nursing home I've had long lost family members steal everything that was not nailed down.And usually donated by us in the first place.Open back dresses.***...One guy rolled his dad's tv still bolted to the cart out and down the rode(no car,he had about a 7 mile walk home)
WHY do they like the old phones & call light remotes? It explains why some ended up in trash when we changed systems. A LOT of our frequent visitors stole the new one & left the old one in the trash!
We caught the daughter of a patient in our clean supply room several times and called security. They observed her leave the hospital with a bag of diapers and followed her to her car. The trunk was full of hospital supplies, styrofoam cups and linens, even pillows and a case of tube feeding. Administration did not press charges and she was allowed to visit freely.
Did they make her return stuff or just tell the staff to be more vigilant?
That is how she probably became wealthy. Never paid for anything-just lifted it due to entitlement issues.
Not justifying what she did. But she might not have felt entitled. She might have grown up in or lived through some serious times of want. Maybe stealing was how she literally survived these hard times.
Had a patient in a chronic dialysis unit steal her own blood cultures! She was very lethargic on this particular day, and had a low grade temperature.
We had a feeling she was smoking weed, and was always anxious when we drew any labs.
Her chair was right next to the lab. At shift change the unit was very busy, I guess she thought we were drawing a drug screen, so when no one was watching her closely, she must have sneaked into the lab and taken them.
We went to pack up the labs later, and they were gone!!
We had a mom attempt to steal automatic leg compressors as her immobile son was being discharged from our unit. The ironic thing is the mother was also a nurse at one of our sister hospitals. When the patient's nurse confronted the mom with her actions, the grandmother proceeded to slap the nurse in the face, calling her a liar. Not joking...
I hope the "slapee" reported Granny for assault. Did the nurse lose her job?
Angelicpurl
99 Posts
The entire COW, cart & all. Wheeled right out ER past security station. Guard caught them in parking lot.
Crash cart....just stole the D50 & epi.
One frequent flyer always came in with 10 piece designer luggage (hard side mostly). We called for more linen & linen manager said he'd just filled both our empty carts, including 10 pillows each. Well, we had NONE. Not even a washcloth! Security checked cameras & trotted to her room, got keys & husband so police could get in her RV. She had it about 1/2 full of our linens!
Worked one place and the only locked doors were to the med rooms & the manager's office. We gave report in break room. We actually had family come in one night & demand to know when we were leaving so they had somewhere to hang out! One guy reached in fridge & swiped a lunch bag in front of us, peeked in it & said that looked ok, so he took it & left. I never brought my lunch. The fridge clearly stated for staff only, but the only place sacred was in our locked locker! And I heard they opened the ones without locks nightly looking for stuff.