Would you report possible diversion?

[Emergent]

If you had a strong suspicion of a coworker's diversion of narcotics, how you handle it?

I'm talking, a nurse in the ER who habitually walks into the room with narcotic drawn up on your patient, right after you medicated, so then you have to waste with him. He has a history of being on a restricted license. He's a great nurse, very experienced, works a ton of OT.

It would probably financially ruin his life to get in trouble again, I don't know how many chances they give people. He functions very well on the job. Is it really the right thing to snitch on someone like this?

Feeling conflicted...

[feb127]

Stealing for an underlying reason..... Not acceptable but maybe understandable once their individual stories were told. I guess what I'm getting at is the news reports the bullcrap ,,,, what about the domestic violence, isolation and financial abuse/violence the nurse endured and coped the only way she knew how

[ktwlpn, LPN]

Sounds like a case recently in our local news.Yes,understandable but inexcusable.Blame every one and everything ....It is still crossing legal,ethical and moral boundaries.

[Boomer MS, RN]

As I wrote in a previous post, the nurse did not divert a narcotic from a patient who had it ordered. So the patients did not suffer. This nurse falsified the chart by writing an order for a specific drug, in this case Demerol. This is just as serious for all the obvious reasons stated in numerous previous posts.

[NurseStorm, BSN, RN]

Seek out mental health support, psychiatrist/counselling, etc to help cope with these issues *hugs*

[Emergent, RN]

Update: The person in question has suddenly resigned.

[Boomer MS, RN]

Update: The person in question has suddenly resigned.

Thank you for the update. Hope you're doing OK.

[Emergent, RN]

Thank you for the update. Hope you're doing OK.

I feel sad for this nurse, his family, and I pray to God to protect them in this dark time. This life we live is so full of pitfalls and challenges for us all.

I'm not going to carry guilt for this one though.

[Farawyn]

I feel sad for this nurse, his family, and I pray to God to protect them in this dark time. This life we live is so full of pitfalls and challenges for us all.

I'm not going to carry guilt for this one though.

Thanks for the update, Emergent!

You did NOTHING wrong. "No guilt" is right!

[Boomer MS, RN]

I feel sad for this nurse, his family, and I pray to God to protect them in this dark time. This life we live is so full of pitfalls and challenges for us all.

I'm not going to carry guilt for this one though.

This is good to hear all around.

[jdub6]

I don't think I have ever personally heard or heard of second hand that any nurse was glad, happy, relieved at being caught and didn't mind the personal, professional and financial cost at the time and after they were caught.

As you say you forced to take responsibility for your actions and as you say looking back how much better your life is now. The process you were forced to go through probably has made you a better nurse.

But I have heard personally and second hand how their life was in the toilet and it wasn't fair with everything that they were forced to do, and felt persecuted for their actions.

As for the narcotics diversion and torturing patients, it's true that it is not the case in every situation, but it happens in more cases than not. How many time have you noticed that the patient documentation showed a noticeable need for pain meds in the previous shift compared to your care of the patient.

(Fyi-i deleted a part of the above that I didn't feel I needed to respond to because I cannot use bold or underline in quotes on my phone)

I have to respectfully disagree with this and your prior post about not knowing any nurses who were caught and didn't see themselves as victims and had no shame (paraphrased as I cannot seem to quote 2 posts at once either. )

I don't know how many nurses you have known who were caught. I have been to nurses meetings with at least 50. Perhaps some people felt this way and left it unsaid. The vast majority of addicts, nurses or not, feel intense shame and guilt and regret. This is part of what keeps them using- the physical detox combined with with emotions is unbearable. As they say on Intervention, "we're not here to make him/her feel bad, if feeling bad solved anything this would probably be solved, because she/he probably feels pretty bad. " I wish with all my being that I had never experimented with drugs- it never occurred to me that I would get addicted, I honestly thought it couldn't happen to me. Even when I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms I attributed them to the chronic pain that made me experiment in the first place- I honestly couldn't tell the difference and it took about 2 years sober before I could.

I diverted for about a year. Never once did my pts go without their meds- that's how I was caught (the "one for you, Two for me method" or as by EAP called it "battling the pyxis machine. ") when I was confronted yes I held out for two long hours with my manager insisting they were wrong before I finally collapsed in tears-not because I felt like I did nothing wrong but because I know I had and it was too painful to admit. I also knew how addicts were perceived- like many nurses who divert I was an overachiever and didn't want that stigma.

And THAT may be where some of the complaining you hear comes in. Addicts are treated as less than human all to often, ESPECIALLY in the medical world- leaving them with no one to turn to for help. Drug possession charges in some jurisdictions carry a heavier penalty than many violent crimes,and most of us know that people rarely come out of jail "better" than when they went in. Insurance rarely covers treatment if the person has it at all. Monitoring programs are enormously expensive- we're talking 10s of thousands- all out of pocket because no state legislature wants to subsidize them because they treat addicts who are obviously BAD EVIL people (and many jails and prisons offer no treatment or treatment for only afew despite the majority of inmates having drug problems, for the same reasons) and on and on.

Am I defending my actions? No. It was wrong,I knew it then I know it now. I just didn't know how to stop. I am asking that you understand that we are people- people who CAN get better and wind up doing great things. But judging and blaming and moralizing makes it harder for us and worse for society as a whole. (If I were to be your pt and tell you I was an addicted nurse who needed help, honestly what would you say about me to your colleagues? How much effort would you put into treating my detox? And if you realize from reading this that I am your coworker- who has toed the line for 6 years,drank a Coke at the holiday party where everyone else was wasted- how would you treat and look at me?)

Granted if I behave in ways that would make you suspicious of anyone that's one thing. But for those of us who work every day to keep ourselves well, being constantly stigmatized as, to quote another poster, "drug pigs" is not helping anyone stay well and in turn society and yes some of our pts may suffer when we give in to the label that we can't shake and act as we are treated.

I realize this is slightly off topic at this point in the thread but couldn't let it go. To the OP I think YOU get this- this is really not directed so much at you as to many of your readers.

[jdub6]

I feel sad for this nurse, his family, and I pray to God to protect them in this dark time. This life we live is so full of pitfalls and challenges for us all.

I'm not going to carry guilt for this one though.

I think you are spot on. I know that when I left (no one turned me in until after I was gone, I was caught by a random audit) that my old colleagues gossiped about me (my mgr told me after I was told by EAP and my monitoring program to approach her about going back) that she didn't think it would work and it was because she had heard some very mean things being said.

I am immensely grateful for those of my old coworkers who congratulated me on Facebook when I got a new job, who saw me in the hospital interviewing for other floors and stopped and talked to me. Had anyone told me they were praying or wishing the best for me it would have been huge- actually I have tears in my eyes now 6.5 years later.

That doesn't mean you should feel guilty. Apparently either something was wrong- in which case you were right- or even if you were wrong he was allowed to resign and if he did nothing will likely easily find other work given your description of his experience etc. The only reason you should feel guilty is if you gossip about this with your colleagues or see him in the community and walk by as though he doesn't exist- and it doesn't sound like that's your plan.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

LOL too bad...so sad (nnottt).

You sound juvenile and cruel. I hope I am wrong.