Whistle-blower retaliation? What happens when no one wants to listen?

[Hospice RNCM]

All,

I work in a long-term care facility, and until recently have been pretty happy. (For more on this situation, read my thread "from Real good to real bad overnite")

Since the time of my last post, a lot of things have happened, most notably being the firing of our DON and a couple of other key people. No word on why that happened, other than they just were not a good fit with the present administrator. I spoke to the administrator privately and she asked me to please stay, mainly because without me the facility would not have 8 hrs a day of RN coverage (I didn't know that was required!)

Now there is a more disturbing problem, that has been and is being tracked by one of our Medication aides. Some of our medications have gone missing from my wing's medication cart, and my med aide has been tracking them, but to her distress no one seems to want to hear anything she says. What is very disturbing is that the culprit is apparently one of our own, a floor nurse. The med aide has told me in confidence that she has seen this nurse take pills, ANY pills, from residents' bubble packs in the med cart and consume them herself. Lord only knows what she is doing with the controlled narcotics. The thing is nobody but this med aide is seeing her do this. She told me that she saw her do it, and the nurse said "oh it's all right, as long as it's properly signed out.....but if you tell anybody, I'll swear you are lying!" I urged her to bring this to the attention of the DON (this being before she was fired) but the DON never would make time to hear her. Quite by chance, she (the med aide) spoke to the lady in the medical records department and this lady urged her to bring this up with the administrator. Then...the other night, I happened to hae a conversation with this same lady (the one from medical records) who told me that this particular nurse is, in her opinion, a compulsive pill-popper. She told me that this nurse would sit at her desk, when she was working in the TILES office, and practically empty out a bottle of Tums daily. She asked her about that, and the nurse told her that she can't help it, that she has to have a pill, any kind of pill. The Med records lady told me that she used to have a bottle of baby aspirin and she would take one or two a day to ward off vein thrombosis, and that she had to lock it up in her desk daily because this nurse would find it and raid it for the pills. She urged me to get together with this med aide and approach the administrator and she would be happy to back us up with first-hand evidence of what she had seen herself, and that, along with anything factual the med aide had would be enough for the administration to do something.

Now the hard part begins. It seems that this med aide now is under the gun. The other day, she was party to a conversation with this particular nurse who said something uncomplementary about another nurse who happens to be good friends with this med aide. The med aide approached this nurse and told her to watch herself around the other nurse (the pill-popper). Later in the day, the med aide was summoned to the unit manager's office and summarily given a disciplinary action to sign, and was told that she was in violation of the employee's manual which makes it an offence to gossip. The reason was that she had told one nurse what another nurse said about her, and this was considered unprofessional. She was also told that she had better not get caught bringing any problems to anyone higher than the unit manager or she would be terminated. Since that day, anyone who this med aide is seen talking to is summoned to the ADON's or the unit manager's office, and asked if this med aide was gossiping to her. The other nite I was conversing with a fellow nurse and mentioned that I was not going to have a med aide for my shift Monday morning and I was thinking of calling this med aide and asking if she would be willing to come in on her day off and work. The nurse I was conversing with told me that #1, they (the ADON's) won't let this med aide work on this wing (also the same wing that the pill=popping nurse works on) any longer, and thery are watchign her closely for a reason to fire her.

This to me smacks of whistle-blower retailiation, and I sense a conspiracy to keep this med aide away from the main problem area, which of course frees the pill-popping nurse to continue her habit unobserved by the med aide who is compiling evidence and trying to make her voice heard. It also seems that the workplace environment is becoming increasingly hostile.

Does anyone think there is any base for a legal action, and if so what kind of evidence would be needed? I hesitate to advise her to seek and attorney because it couldbe easily her word against some very powerful people, and without proper proof, she could go down and probably even never be able to work as a med aide again. I unfortunately don't have any direct proof myself, so I can't help her. Bailing out would be the easiest solution but what happens after we are gone?

Steve

[SilentfadesRPA]

What a mess Steve --

my advise is to get yourself out of there as soon as you can.

G*D forbid that you may be thier next victim -- Sounds like my friend you have a very unsafe unprofessional place your working in. Get out now before your involved over your head.

Marc

[ukstudent]

They are trying to fire the one person that is looking out for patient saftey and you don't know what to do?!!! GET OUT of that poisonous place NOW. Before they fire you on some made up reason. The med tech can either call the BON and report the nurse or call the state.

[MrsMommaRN]

what a horrible situation. there has to be somewhere you can start. it has to be outside of the facility. who is the facility owned by? surely they don't want this kind of thing going on. make an anonymous call.

is there a reason you are staying there? keep us updated.

[gauge14iv, MSN, APRN, NP]

Report the pill popping nurse to the licensing board.

Document everything you can and get the heck out of dodge asap before your license is next - if you are the RN, you could be held responsible for those narcs and missing meds!

[gonzo1, ASN, RN]

You need to quit immediately. No job is worth your license that you have worked so hard for. I would get out and find another job and then start calling around to report what is going on there as far as the medication thievery. I don't know who you would report this to but start with your state nursing board and follow their instructions. Please keep yourself safe in this very toxic environment. Best of luck to you