Escapee, Pumpless And The Strangling Nurse

Arriving on my floor yesterday, I got off the elevator and was met by a frantic coworker.

"Did you see an old man?", she asked.

On the way in I had passed dozens of old men, women too. This is a hospital, that's mostly what we see.

I answered "no" and kept walking. End of conversation. (I hadn't paid attention to anyone when walking in, so a description wouldn't have helped. I was aware of other people's presence, but hadn't really seen anyone.)

Later, when I saw her back on the floor, I asked if she had found the man that she was looking for. She had, but it didn't do any good. He had gotten fed up and left, without even signing a waiver. He refused to come back. I can understand how he must have felt. There are times when I want to take off as well, but then I would have to look for a new job.

Last night, we had a shortage of IV pumps so we had to decide who needed them more and run the other, less critical, IVs by gravity. We're not allowed to run IVs by gravity, but what choice did we have? They don't want to buy more equipment because it is so expensive, but then, so are lawsuits. If something goes wrong, a lucky lawyer is going to have fun in court with how we triage the equipment.

The nurse who strangled an aide awhile back floated to my floor. It was her first day back after a three month leave of absence. I don't know if it was voluntary or punitive and wasn't about to ask. She didn't strangle anyone tonight, but we also didn't have any aides working, so it wasn't a good test.

I bet the night nurse who took over from her wanted to strangle her. As usual, she left a pile of unfinished tasks for the next nurse. I told the strangler that before she left, she needed to re-start the IVs that came out and catheterize the patients who couldn't pee, but she didn't. She can be charming and has fooled some people high up in the organization. They think that she can do no wrong and has been ganged up against. I'm patient, though. I think that it's just a matter of time before she screws up again big-time. Just give her time.