here is the full transcript of the Mag& Iv conversation about the lawsuit and ER stuff that took place earlier today:
(I withheld the name of the charging nurse)
Mag: my girlfriend [name] just got a puppy right before I got on this. She’s the one that told me about the lawsuit
Iv: what lawsuit
Mag: the lawyer had called her to a meeting about a patient (inaudible) I can’t really talk about it. But anyhow, there was a lawsuit, and um, I was one of the nurses on duty that day and my girlfriend [name] was the charge nurse on duty and she already got called and they were like ‘who’s signature is this on chart?’ She was like ‘hmmmm. I don’t know’
Iv: why, it was hers?
Mag: no it was me
Iv: then why did she say she didn’t know?
Mag: because you don’t sell out your friend!
Iv: what happened?
Mag: well apparently they were going to try to find me
Iv: what did you do?
Mag: I’m HERE! It was the day before I came!
Iv: but what did you do though?
Mag: I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t a fault of mine
Iv: (inaudible)
Mag: family (inaudible – claiming?) wrongful death
Iv: do they do that a lot?
Mag: yeah. And then (inaudible) dropped along the process
Iv: really?
Mag: yeah. I mean think about it. If a family member dies, you don’t want to think it was anything that they did that made them die – so it must have been something that someone else did. No one can just die. There has to be someone else’s fault
Iv: how many times have you been called
Mag: all the way to court? Never
Iv: how many nurses do you know
Mag: I think almost every nurse that I know has been
Iv: that’s horrible. That’s horrible
Mag: yeah, it is, but what do you do? It’s the way things were set up. There’s so much of…so much…
Iv: (inaudible - give me an example of what) have you been called for…before
Mag: Ok, let me think. Patient gets really drunk
Iv: mm hmm
Mag: Um…Um…is brought into the hospital because they’re so drunk they could barely breath. You know how people choke on their vomit. We tell them they can’t get up - we have to lie them down on the stretcher and start giving them IV fluids. Um…we’re not allowed to tie them up unless they are violent. They climb over the rail to get out of bed, they fall, and they sue us.
Iv: what happened to that?
Mag: I don’t know. That’s one of the ones I know about. There’s another one…
Iv: it got dropped. That one got dropped – right?
Mag: No
Iv: the hospital got sued
Mag: Uh huh. There’s another one. A patient comes in to the lobby with a headache – SO many patients that come into the ER with a headache – it’s like the number one. They sit in the waiting room for 5 or 6 hours…cause there’s no room…there’s heart attacks going on – YKWIM? Um, they decide that they’ve waited too long, they go home, they sign themselves out, refused medical treatment, go home, and die of a heart attack. And the family sued. Cause they should have known it was a heart attack because she came in with a headache.
Iv: wow. So they’re (inaudible)
Mag: they’re not (inaudible) . We don’t have a choice. We’re told we have to take care of the sickest of the sick - a headache is not the sickest of the sick
Iv: that’s like I told that one time that my mom was like bleeding profusely for 3 days out of her nose
Mag: uh huh
Iv: and we finally took her to the hospital…took her twice to the hospital…and she wasn’t bleeding in the hospital so they sent her home – if something would have happened to my mother I would have f**kn raised hell.
Mag: You couldn’t have. There’s nothing…we can’t do anything when people aren’t bleeding. So it would have been a useless thing
Iv: there’s got to be a reason why her nose was just pouring blood. Like if someone opened a faucet
Mag: right. right. We would have drawn her blood and made sure she didn’t have…you know?…a low blood count, and sent her home. Told her to go to an EMT doctor. You can’t hold someone just in case it happens again…or just in case. YKWIM? There’s not room. We’ve sent heart attack patients home in a day and a half, sometimes two. There is no room for a “just in case” scenario. I’m sure that’s not…you know…easy to hear
A brief silence
Mag: Our society (long pause) patients demanding to be kept over night because someone has the flu? That’s a big one. (Mockingly) ‘I have the flu. Can you keep me overnight?’. Cause everyone feels like they’re dying when they have the flu, it sucks YKWIM? You’re vomiting, you’re shitting your brains out, but, can’t keep you for it
Long pause of silence
Mag: what are you thinking about?
Iv: nothing. Just listening to your story
Mag: I’ll be dealing with that soon enough
Someone now has hiccups
Mag: So do you think it’ll be weird now going back and asking for someone’s order?
Iv: what do you mean?
Seems like nursing/hospital convo is over and onto talking about Ivette's job and food
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