Elderly Woman Dies After Nurse Refuses to Give Her CPR

[Kaisu]

http://gma.yahoo.com/elderly-woman-dies-nurse-refuses-182806486.html

[scubanurse]

wow... why hire nurses then???

[Bieber]

When adherence to protocol overrides our mission to provide good patient care, medicine fails. This story may be the one that finally reached the news, but harm to patients in the name of protocol happens every day in this country and in our industry in specific. Hopefully this tragedy will help encourage people to do what's right for the patient instead of what's right for the protocol. I know when my hour comes, I don't want to be injured or killed by the actions or inactions of those who are more concerned with following procedure than with saving my life.

[island emt]

Was she truly a nurse , as in RN or a licensed practical bedpan changer? or even less a CNA? The CEO of the place stated she followed corporate policy & procedures manual.

This was not a nursing home type of facility , it was an adult living complex according to the article I read. A place where they provide laundry service and common dining facilities for seniors who can afford the costs.

On the other side of the story? what are state requirements for these type of facilities, besides warehousing rich folks when they get old?

Maybe someone from the land of fruits & nuts can give us this info.

[BushyFromOz]

Dont usually advocate litigation... but sue the ass off this crowd for sure!

[ERDoc]

I don't know about the litigation. If they signed a form stating that CPR was not allowed, they knew the consequences. From what I have read, the family seems fine with what happened. It sounds like some dispatcher got her nose tweaked and wants to make a case out of it. The only ones that should have brought this to the media should have been the family.

[Just Plain Ruff]

absolutely Doc.

When we were looking for places to put my great aunt, there were several facilities who told us that they would NOT start CPR on my great aunt. They said that they did not do that at that facility and we had to sign a form (or my aunt had to) prior to moving in.

The family probably had to as well.

Let's NOT hang this nurse out to dry here as this is not as rare as anyone here thinks. Of the 5 facilities that we looked at 3 of them would have made us sign them.

If it's the policy of the nursing center or the retirement community that they wait for the ambulance to provide the cpr or other Emergency care, and you sign that you agree with it when you place Gramma betty in their care, then what is the issue.

Like Doc said, the family doesn't seem to have an issue and the dispatcher was so pissed that they went to the media which I bet is a violation of the policy of that 911 center.

Every jurisdiction should know what their nursing homes provide pre-hospitally and what they do not.

And let me ask this question, Just how many codes do run on to nursing homes where the nursing staff is truly actively doing CPR on the patient? Be honest?

This nurse should not be chastised and the dispatcher was very very rude in my opinion. Yes she was trying to save the ladies life but I think she was pretty rude.

But what is happening, this nurse and the nursing home is getting raked over the coals for this because that is exactly what the MEDIA does.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Captain ToHellWithItAll

[ERDoc]

I feel for this nurse. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. We see what happens when she didn't do CPR and if she did she may have lost her job. We can be a altruistic as we want and say that she should have done CPR regardless of the fall out, but how do we know that this woman isn't a single mom with some kids at home, living paycheck to paycheck? Now she's on the street because she did CPR on an 87 year old woman. I'm not going to judge her unless something more impressive comes out.

[Resqmedic]

Isn't it interesting with something in our little world makes it into he big time.

So here is my little story to muddy the waters. We get dispatched last week to a local nursing home we will just call them "Tenderscare" as to keep things anonymous. The dispatch info "Elderly male, cardiac arrest, nurses fighting over doing CPR", we get there a tech is actually doing CPR, run the arrest, convert the guy after a whole lotta zaps and drugs, Ends up getting discharged. What happed was the tech was walking the guy to the toilet, he vagaled and went down cracking his head on the toilet, the nurses wouldn't allow anyone to help him until they went back to the nurses' station and checked his code status.

So liability wise who is the wrongest?

[Just Plain Ruff]

I feel for this nurse. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. We see what happens when she didn't do CPR and if she did she may have lost her job. We can be a altruistic as we want and say that she should have done CPR regardless of the fall out, but how do we know that this woman isn't a single mom with some kids at home, living paycheck to paycheck? Now she's on the street because she did CPR on an 87 year old woman. I'm not going to judge her unless something more impressive comes out.

Absolutely Doc but what will happen is that the nursing home looking to quell the "forced outrage" that the dispatcher and the media has given the public and this nurse will be the sacrificial lamb. Mark my words, the media is looking for blood on this one, the dispatcher (who should never have made this public) is looking for blood due to her righteous indignity because she got shut down on all fronts, and the assisted living center will say "we've re-evaluated policy and made adjustments" and that adjustment will be this nurse is out of a job.

Isn't it interesting with something in our little world makes it into he big time.

So here is my little story to muddy the waters. We get dispatched last week to a local nursing home we will just call them "Tenderscare" as to keep things anonymous. The dispatch info "Elderly male, cardiac arrest, nurses fighting over doing CPR", we get there a tech is actually doing CPR, run the arrest, convert the guy after a whole lotta zaps and drugs, Ends up getting discharged. What happed was the tech was walking the guy to the toilet, he vagaled and went down cracking his head on the toilet, the nurses wouldn't allow anyone to help him until they went back to the nurses' station and checked his code status.

So liability wise who is the wrongest?

whew, crazy and stupid, all in the same breath. Make no mistake folks, these places are where most of us will evetually end up unless we die in our sleep.