Published
So here's the back story....one of the nurses on the unit went into respiratory distress. She was yelling and screaming for oxygen and a nebulizer treatment no one did anything except call 911. The supervisor stated that he did not want to lose his license and the administrator said it was against the facility policy to give any type of treatment. The nurse died on the unit before the ambulance came. What would you have done in this situation? Would you have risked your license if you believed that you could have possibly saved the nurses life?
People and animals have two basic, non negotiable instincts: fight or flight!!! In this case, my instinct would be to fight by trying to calm her down and focus on her breathing ( clearly she has an airway exchange due to yelling and screaming) but none the less hyperventilation doesn't allow CO2 to leave the body so she would eventually pass out. If asthma was the cause and she simply didn't have her meds on her I would start a neb (asthma being the only reason) 2nd of all if this happened in Australia two things happen 1.we are covered under the Good Samaritan act (nursing staff, the general public etc) but doctors and paramedics are expected to help so no one would lose their licence for performing a task well within the scope of their practice. 2. Said person would be stabilised as soon as possible either in the field or on the unit (if in a hospital setting) then sent to emergency for observation and investigations for the cause.
Also in Australia if something like this were to happen in a ward of a hospital we have a thing called a MET call basically goes: Code blue A6 corridor! The MET go to the code blue on the ward A6. Btw MET stands for medical emergency team!
I would find it very hard to believe that a nurse would lose their licence over performing ALS techniques when the nursing board have bigger fish to fry!
l33tnewb11
70 Posts
If I were a nurse, I would probably help, as I believe there are laws that will protect you in circumstances like this. Even better; if I were that worried about losing my license I would run and clock out quickly and act as a civilian performing a rescue attempt off the clock.