I started to post this in the Covid thread but felt as though it may not be seen by as many posters, and I'd like as many opinions on this as possible. ( I expect a few smart *** replies; it's the Paddock after all)
First, for anyone who may not be aware of what a 72 Hour Hold is: this is a law that is, in one form or another, on the books in each state. It says that, in effect, if you come to the hospital and present as a danger to yourself, or others, a doctor has the legal right to hold you for evaluation, and or treatment, for up to 72 hours. (Weekends and holidays do not count towards the 72 hours, btw.)
Many times when this occurs an Officer for UKPD, be it from the force or from Security, is to be placed in the room with the patient so that they can protect the medical staff, and the patient themselves. UK also has trained Patient Safety Technicians who can stay with the non violent patients, but there's not nearly enough of them to go around, and @ 90% of holds are non violent; most are termed S.I, ( suicidal inclinations). As you might imagine, we deal with some of the worst in society anyway, and from time to time have to go "hands on" in order to restrain them from hurting others or themselves. We also have people come in who are, quite literally, insane. Those are fun.....not.
With this virus in the picture we now have some patients who are on holds who MIGHT have Covid, and of course it takes up to 12 hours to get the results back. These patients are in a special "Locked Respiratory Unit" until it is determined whether they have it or not. This is where I come in.
On Friday we had more holds than we had people to be posted with them, and no techs available, so they called me in off of patrol to sit with one in the locked unit. Now, UKPD policy has always been that, until we have a negative Covid result back on the patient, we sit outside the room and observe the patient. (Very boring work most of the time)
So, as I'm sitting outside the room making sure all the paperwork, legal and procedural, was in order and fully filled out, a nurse comes up to me and asks whether the patient has been "wanded". (We normally wand a patient with a metal detector to ensure they don't have a gun, knife, etc on their person.) I told her no, and she snapped in a hateful tone, "WHY"? I explained to her that policy states that, until we know the patient is Covid negative we don't go into the room unless the patient becomes violent towards medical staff. On top of that, this particular patient had already been stripped down to his underwear and placed in an "elopement gown", which is just a regular hospital gown but is blue in color, to signify the patient is on a hold. Another nurse and med tech had done this 30 minutes prior; the guy didn't have anything on him.....duh.
She began spouting off how his nurse couldn't enter the room to give the patient his medicine, (guy was in a LOT of pain, it was quite obvious, until he was wanded. I repeated what I'd said before, and that the guy only had his gown on and that the other nurse would have noticed had he had anything at all on his person, again....duh. She wasn't having it, and stated she'd be making some calls. I told her she could call the Chief, I wasn't going in the room, period. (Btw, this isn't legal on the nurse's part, and she COULD lose her job over this for refusing treatment to the patient) The same nurse returned @ 30 minutes later with a printed copy of what is expected of Patient Safety Techs who are with a hold patient. I told the nurse, "I'm not a PST, I work for UKPD and our policy is as I stated to you before.
At this point the guy's wife was becoming livid because her husband was suffering in pain and the nurse refused to enter the room until I wanded him. She understood my position and wasn't angry with me, but she was furious with the nurse.
Now, by this point Legal is getting involved, Compliance, etc. **** was hitting the fan. A Lt. told me to don PPE and go sit in the room; I refused. They began calling other Officers; EVERY. SINGLE Officer also refused until we had the test results back, every single one. So what did they do? The doctor lifted the 72 hour hold, I went back to patrol, and the patient got his medicine. The guy had made a comment that he shouldn't have made, but he said it while in terrible pain, it happens, I've seen it before. Not excusing what he said of course, but sometimes we all say things we regret later, and this was one of those cases with this guy.. It was quite obvious from the get go this guy was no threat to himself or anyone else, and besides that, he was in no shape to be a threat anyway.
Saturday morning we learned that our direct supervisor had been suspended without pay for a week because he too had refused to enter the room, and because not one of his Officers would either. It's B.S, because we were following established policy, and because it was pointless to potentially expose ourselves to the virus when we could do the same thing by observing through the door.
We protect everyone on campus equally, but especially in the E.R department we've "saved their bacon" countless times over from truly terrible people, yet a lot of the nurses treat us like crap, and it's only gotten worse of late. I myself am seriously considering leaving, it's just not worth it anymore.
Without giving out the patients info of course, I've given you pretty much all you need to know; how do you think you would have handled the situation? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
Btw, I was SO damn proud that all of us stood together, united on this.
First, for anyone who may not be aware of what a 72 Hour Hold is: this is a law that is, in one form or another, on the books in each state. It says that, in effect, if you come to the hospital and present as a danger to yourself, or others, a doctor has the legal right to hold you for evaluation, and or treatment, for up to 72 hours. (Weekends and holidays do not count towards the 72 hours, btw.)
Many times when this occurs an Officer for UKPD, be it from the force or from Security, is to be placed in the room with the patient so that they can protect the medical staff, and the patient themselves. UK also has trained Patient Safety Technicians who can stay with the non violent patients, but there's not nearly enough of them to go around, and @ 90% of holds are non violent; most are termed S.I, ( suicidal inclinations). As you might imagine, we deal with some of the worst in society anyway, and from time to time have to go "hands on" in order to restrain them from hurting others or themselves. We also have people come in who are, quite literally, insane. Those are fun.....not.
With this virus in the picture we now have some patients who are on holds who MIGHT have Covid, and of course it takes up to 12 hours to get the results back. These patients are in a special "Locked Respiratory Unit" until it is determined whether they have it or not. This is where I come in.
On Friday we had more holds than we had people to be posted with them, and no techs available, so they called me in off of patrol to sit with one in the locked unit. Now, UKPD policy has always been that, until we have a negative Covid result back on the patient, we sit outside the room and observe the patient. (Very boring work most of the time)
So, as I'm sitting outside the room making sure all the paperwork, legal and procedural, was in order and fully filled out, a nurse comes up to me and asks whether the patient has been "wanded". (We normally wand a patient with a metal detector to ensure they don't have a gun, knife, etc on their person.) I told her no, and she snapped in a hateful tone, "WHY"? I explained to her that policy states that, until we know the patient is Covid negative we don't go into the room unless the patient becomes violent towards medical staff. On top of that, this particular patient had already been stripped down to his underwear and placed in an "elopement gown", which is just a regular hospital gown but is blue in color, to signify the patient is on a hold. Another nurse and med tech had done this 30 minutes prior; the guy didn't have anything on him.....duh.
She began spouting off how his nurse couldn't enter the room to give the patient his medicine, (guy was in a LOT of pain, it was quite obvious, until he was wanded. I repeated what I'd said before, and that the guy only had his gown on and that the other nurse would have noticed had he had anything at all on his person, again....duh. She wasn't having it, and stated she'd be making some calls. I told her she could call the Chief, I wasn't going in the room, period. (Btw, this isn't legal on the nurse's part, and she COULD lose her job over this for refusing treatment to the patient) The same nurse returned @ 30 minutes later with a printed copy of what is expected of Patient Safety Techs who are with a hold patient. I told the nurse, "I'm not a PST, I work for UKPD and our policy is as I stated to you before.
At this point the guy's wife was becoming livid because her husband was suffering in pain and the nurse refused to enter the room until I wanded him. She understood my position and wasn't angry with me, but she was furious with the nurse.
Now, by this point Legal is getting involved, Compliance, etc. **** was hitting the fan. A Lt. told me to don PPE and go sit in the room; I refused. They began calling other Officers; EVERY. SINGLE Officer also refused until we had the test results back, every single one. So what did they do? The doctor lifted the 72 hour hold, I went back to patrol, and the patient got his medicine. The guy had made a comment that he shouldn't have made, but he said it while in terrible pain, it happens, I've seen it before. Not excusing what he said of course, but sometimes we all say things we regret later, and this was one of those cases with this guy.. It was quite obvious from the get go this guy was no threat to himself or anyone else, and besides that, he was in no shape to be a threat anyway.
Saturday morning we learned that our direct supervisor had been suspended without pay for a week because he too had refused to enter the room, and because not one of his Officers would either. It's B.S, because we were following established policy, and because it was pointless to potentially expose ourselves to the virus when we could do the same thing by observing through the door.
We protect everyone on campus equally, but especially in the E.R department we've "saved their bacon" countless times over from truly terrible people, yet a lot of the nurses treat us like crap, and it's only gotten worse of late. I myself am seriously considering leaving, it's just not worth it anymore.
Without giving out the patients info of course, I've given you pretty much all you need to know; how do you think you would have handled the situation? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
Btw, I was SO damn proud that all of us stood together, united on this.
