Fallen Officer Memorial Wall

 

The memorial wall I created in my home to honor fallen officers 💙 

A video showing a closer look 👇

https://youtu.be/oJVWxquFJ5A?si=iALrNtfOE27tCinq

The night I had to choose

 

My buddies at Tarzana 

I absolutely loved working in the ER & even more I loved being a nurse. I worked very hard to finish nursing school while raising my 3 kids alone & I always have taken my license seriously & put my patients as a priority. When I was at work, my job was to care for my patients, keep them safe & advocate for them, even if that meant raising my voice or arguing with an MD, it didn't matter, my goal was to help my patients & keep them safe.

One night while working in triage, as was my usual assignment, I had a patient come in complaining of severe pain, so I do triage & am thinking he probably has kidney stones, which is the worst pain I had seen many patients come in with & so I am rushing to finish & get him back to the main ER area so they can medicate him.

A coworker of mine (let's call her nurse B) who was assisting with taking the patients to the back for me (cause at this time the construction separated triage from the main ER) she offered to take him back before I even finished & she was very excited or anxious to want to medicate him. 🧐 I got suspicious at her behavior & started watching her more closely at that moment, I also called back to my charge nurse when she took the pt back to tell her Not to let nurse B medicate him for reasons I'd explain, I told her we need to talk.

I had worked with nurse B many times & knew this behavior was over the top for even her, she had disappeared a couple times that night earlier, & even though she was smoker, still she was gone too long on these breaks, but after this incident with the patient I realized she was under the influence of something 🤔. I spoke with my charge nurse privately & expressed my concerns & we decided to call our director at home in the middle of the night, lol, I didn't care about the time, I was concerned she may do something to hurt a patient if she's not in her right mind. After speaking to our director I felt at least I'm doing the right thing, but her response was disappointing-basically nothing was done. I thought at least a drug test on the spot (which is protocol) but nope.

I did a written report in our online system also to cover myself too cause I honestly felt like if they were going to let her keep working even with my suspicion (an experienced nurse of 14yrs who has seen many pts high, drunk etc) then I needed to go further. After a couple weeks go by & I saw her working again, I was pissed, & feeling like there is more to this story. I filed a report with "JCAHO" which stands for Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, I explained that no actions were being taken & waited to hear back.

I found out in meantime some very disturbing information about nurse B, first that she had a history of substance abuse & that the house supervisor was a personal friend of hers & knew of her history. I also found out she was recently counseled by the hospital about this, BUT THEY LET HER KEEP WORKING😡 putting patients lives at risk! She floated units & even worked in pediatrics.

I asked a coworker who knew about this secret, how could you work with her & be silent about this? And basically she didn't want to be the one to end someone's career. Gtfoh,😡 better to risk patients lives??  I was disgusted with everyone at Providence Tarzana Medical Center after that. Integrity & honesty is a key characteristic you need as a nurse & I never looked at my hospital the same again. 

It is only because I pushed the issue & filed with the board of registered nursing also & told the joint commission of others having knowledge of her history of abuse did she finally get fired or maybe transferred,  who knows but she wasn't there anymore. I couldn't let it go, cause if a patient died or got injured from her doing something,  I'd never forgive myself & protecting all patients was my job. 

After this, everyone of course knew who turned her in & people became afraid to fuck off around me, haha, it was ridiculous,  but I didn’t let it bother me, I feel like if You are responsible for people's health & let a nurse work under the influence-You are guilty too. This coworker was a friend too, she even came to my wedding, so don't think there was any bad feelings between us, it didn't matter, she was high on the job & that's unacceptable.