Nurse sacked for moving faulty equipment.

[husmusen]

The link.

 

Thoughts and opinions?

 

It seems a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

Hard to believe we have a nursing shortage in this country.

 

What happened to a formal caution anyway?

[Ophiolite]

I don't think anyone can be bothered going through the hassle of registering in order to be able to read the article. Can you summarise its content?

[Gilded]

And I'm not even registered. A strong "aye" for the summarisation process from me.

[Drug addict]

from the article:

 

A senior nurse has been sacked by a rural health service for removing what she believed was faulty medical equipment that could have endangered patients.

 

Rural Northwest Health last week dismissed Sandra Decker, a nurse with 35 years' experience, after she removed a defibrillator from the emergency department at the health network's Hopetoun hospital without permission.

 

The Australian Nursing Federation says Ms Decker was unfairly dismissed, as she was trying to protect patients and other staff from possible electrocution. The union's industrial officer, Paul Gilbert, said Ms Decker had made several reports to management about the defibrillator, which is used to regulate a patient's heartbeat. The hospital has denied the equipment was faulty or dangerous.

 

"Even when you turned it off it would continue to run and it looked as though it could be a risk to people," Mr Gilbert said. "It still seemed no one had acted on her complaints and there had been another three or four complaints about the machine being unsafe by other nurses.

 

"Being in charge, Sandra took it upon herself to remove that machine, and placed it in front of the manager's office, assuming that would bring his attention to what had become an urgent issue. Instead . . . she was stood down."

 

After an investigation, Ms Decker's termination was confirmed on January 10.

 

Hopetoun union members yesterday adopted a resolution that supported Ms Decker's belief that the defibrillator was malfunctioning, and said they would seek help from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. They will meet next week to consider further action.

 

Mr Gilbert appealed to the Government to intervene. Health Minister Bronwyn Pike's spokesman, Ben Hart, said the minister had asked for a brief on the issue "but sees it as an employment matter between the hospital and the former nurse".

 

Ms Decker said the hospital had alternative equipment that could have been used in place of the defibrillator, and felt she had been "professionally insulted".

 

But Ken Taylor, the health network's sole director said the defibrillator was not faulty and had been missing for eight hours, endangering patients. "Yes, there is an alternative there - it's a back-up to this one - but you've voluntarily removed your best piece of equipment for doing the job."

 

All you've got at present is the nurse's word against the employer's word, but it should be straightforward to test the defibrillator, as long as it's not gone missing...

 

There should surely be procedures in the hospital for bringing attention to equipment thought to be faulty. Removing it and placing it in front of the manager's office is probably not the way to go.

[ed84c]

I think it is insane how she could be sacked for that, obviously that is better than a patient dying because it was faulty.

 

I would be interested to know whether or not it was faulty. I think however, it would have been a little more clever to ask somebody first.

[JaKiri]

All you've got at present is the nurse's word against the employer's word

 

Incorrect. It said there were independent sources for the nature of the machine.

[husmusen]

My apologies, on the computer I posted this from clicking took me straight

through, but on the other computer, I got the registration screen.

 

I suspect the previous user that day had already registered or the library

has some arangement.

Had I known, I would have posted the summary. I assumed they'd given up

on the whole registering business.

 

From the article:

"No one had acted on her complaints and there had been another three or four complaints about the machine being unsafe by other nurses."

 

It really seems that she had made every effort to go through proper channels. The thought of a nursing culture where anyone who sees something awry says nothing, lest they get sacked, scares me.

 

ed84c: Note 'complaints' plural, she did ask people.

[Mokele]

I'd say that, while she didn't act in the most rational of ways (likely out of frustration), the problem isn't her, but the hospital's policy on such equipment. That beurocratic ineptitude drove her to do that indicates, to me, the failure here is in the system.

 

Mokele

[Glider]

I'd go along with that. As far as I can see, she had the patient's best interests in mind and took the only course of action she felt remained open to her.

 

I don't know how it works over there, but in the UK, it is quite within the remit of any senior nurse (ward sister/charge nurse) to remove from use any equipment she or he has reason to suspect may be faulty, or a possible danger to patients or staff, and to get the equipment tested properly. In fact, the nurse would be failing in his or her duty if they did not remove it. This applies to everything used on their ward, whether it be a defib showing weird behaviour, beds with knackered cotsides, pulse oxymeters showing bizzarre readings, even dripstands with wobbly wheels.

[Daymare17]

Was she a unionist? Managements usually use incidents like this to get rid of "undesirables".

[Coral Rhedd]

Being in charge, Sandra took it upon herself to remove that machine, and placed it in front of the manager's office, assuming that would bring his attention to what had become an urgent issue.

 

She was fired because she exposed the laziness, the carelessness, and the liability of those in power who could have taken action but didn't. People often get fired for doing the right thing.

[Aardvark]

I don't know how it works over there, but in the UK, it is quite within the remit of any senior nurse (ward sister/charge nurse) to remove from use any equipment she or he has reason to suspect may be faulty, or a possible danger to patients or staff, and to get the equipment tested properly. In fact, the nurse would be failing in his or her duty if they did not[/i'] remove it.

 

In theory that may be true, in practice it's not so simple.

 

If a nurse (or doctor) removes a piece of equipment they believe to be faulty without management authority then they are potentially liable for serious charges relating to patient endangerment.

 

If they don't remove the equipment then they are potentially liable for serious charges relating to patient endangerment.

 

And in the management is always immune from any consequences as long as no official decision is made, resulting in no useful action ever coming from management.

 

I speak from experience.

[Mokele]

Hence the appeal of "alternative medicine". Do you want the honest stupidity of a lone crackpot or the dishonest laziness of incompetent middle managers?

 

Mokele, who is now afraid of hospitals, due soley to this thread.

[Coral Rhedd]

You should be afraid of hospitals. I almost died in one last summer due to being overdosed in the hospital on a drug that actually aggravated the symptoms I was experiencing. My friends had stayed with me all day but when they finally left to get some rest a nurse double dosed me on a sleep medication I should never had had in the first place.

 

The doctor, in an unguarded moment because she was exhausted from a double shift actually said to me: "She (the nurse) just wanted you to sleep so she wouldn't have to be bothered." Instead I nearly bled to death internally.

 

No one in an ICU staffed by inexperienced nurses should ever be left alone. You need people -- family or friends -- with you to watch and question the people who are "treating" you.

[husmusen]

Posted by Choral Rhedd

"No one in an ICU staffed by inexperienced nurses should ever be left alone. You need people -- family or friends -- with you to watch and question the people who are "treating" you."

 

I had an experience somewhat similar to this except I was the one doing

the watching. A relative of mine collapsed and was taken by ambulance to hospital, where I had a great deal of trouble trying to get her seen.

Turns out she had been classed as a 'geriatric fall'.

 

That was only the beginning of things.

 

Oh and what country were you in? There is no way in *&%^* that

an ICU should be staffed by inexperienced people, are you sure they just weren't on their third shift?

 

Mokele:

I'm not sure I'm greatly enamoured by one or the other .

If what I posted before makes you afraid of hospitals I could probably give

you a coronary/stroke just by talking. .

 

Oh I believe she is in the union, not unusual in Australia, nursings fairly unionised.

 

Cheers.

[Hellbender]

Hard to believe we have a nursing shortage in this country.

 

Not really. The job pretty much sucks. My mother is a nurse, so I know what they have to do. Emptying bedpans full of human feces gets real old. I know this is off topic, but I just wanted to state my opinion.

[husmusen]

Heh, heh.

 

I'm studying to be one at the moment.

So I know there is a bit of a shortage on.

 

I could perhaps of put it better as,

the way they're sacking people at the drop of a hat,

It's hard to believe there is a nursing shortage.

 

But to get things back on track,

A second question,

 

Is there anything this nurse could have done to avoid being

sacked without doing something wrong?

 

If she hadn't moved the equipment and some patient got crispy,

She would have been sacked(rightly).

She did remove the equipment after first going through management and

getting the problem noted by other nurses. Management ignored her and

then sacked her when she moved it.

 

So I'm just curious wether anyone can think of a course of action.

I might raise this in the OH&S class this week.

 

Cheers.

[Glider]

I think she has a case for constructive dismissal. She went through the correct channels and was ignored.

[Aardvark]

I think she has a case for constructive dismissal. She went through the correct channels and was ignored.

 

Being in the right isn't always enough. Sometimes its being in the right which is the problem.

[Glider]

And if she can show that she was in the right, it will become her manager's problem, as it should be.

[Aardvark]

And if she can show[/i'] that she was in the right, it will become her manager's problem, as it should be.

 

Being in the right and showing that you are in the right isn't always enough.

 

The power structures are more interested in preserving their own interests than truth or justice. Management operate to protect their own interests, they control the appeals process.

[Glider]

But tribunals are independent. There's obviously no point in her appealing to the people who sacked her, shen needs to appeal to an independent body.

[Aardvark]

But tribunals are independent. There's obviously no point in her appealing to the people who sacked her, shen needs to appeal to an independent body.

 

'Independent body'. Those same independent bodies manned by the people who work in management? Those independent bodies which are set up by political appointees and are subject to strong outside pressures to give the 'right' result?

[Glider]

Now you're just depressing me.