About Our Hospital Security Guards

What do you think hospital security guards do? Do their rounds and make sure the building is safe? In our building there are certain areas where the guards punch a small flashlight-like magnetic device to record that they checked that area. I don’t know how often they have to do this. Some of them get too friendly with the nursing staff that they spend too much time bantering on the unit. Others like the one we have tonight has reportedly become a snitch, reporting to the higher ups what the staffmembers are doing, going so far as to do a headcount of how many people are working on a particular shift. I don’t know if that is part of his job responsibility and it would sure be interesting to see his full job description. It’s bad enough that we are being constantly monitored and recorded by cameras all over the hospital. I even jokingly suggested to my co-workers that we should get a blow up doll, dress it in scrubs, and seat it in the hallway as a decoy. Or do like that children’s story where the mice attach a bell on the cat so they know when the cat is coming.

This particular security guard had already caused the termination of a 15 year long nurse on a medical floor because the nurse dozed off momentarily in the nursing station. Is it the guard’s job to try to get workers in trouble? It is this kind of nit picking by certain people with a false sense of authority that contributes to the low morale of their co-workers. With the constant fear of being terminated in this high unemployment times, even good workers are concerned about going on their required lunch break because the security guard might report them as having disappeared from their post. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of security doing a head count of nursing staff. How ridiculous could that be? I wonder who authorized or gave him the order to do this kind of monitoring? Could it be that he is doing it on his own in an effort to make him look good to his supervisor?

Mr. Security guard, thank you for watching over us and our hospital to make us safe, but please cease and desist watching us in a way that make us feel unsafe for our cherished jobs.