The Great Escape

               Last week, we had a patient who was upset about being in the hospital and made it known to his parents who were visiting, that he will not be here the next day. He stormed out of the visiting area and went back to his room. A few minutes later we heard a loud crash coming from his room and we rushed to see what happened. I cringed at the thought of seeing the patient hang himself. Upon entering the room, we didn’t see him so we immediately checked the bathroom. The window had been busted open and the patient was trying to escape! He probably thought that the window led to his freedom. Unbeknownst to him, it opened into an inside patio with a door leading to the nurse’s station. After a brief tug of war of the door between him and a female nurse, he managed to enter the office. There, he encountered more nursing staff who had rushed back to the office knowing that the only egress the patient had was in there. He must have been so disappointed to see where he ended up in. He tried to fight with us when he was being escorted out of the office so we didn’t have a choice but to tie him on a bed with leather restraints. As I probably mentioned in a post awhile ago, we try as much as possible to avoid restraining a patient, but in this case, with his aggressive behavior, that was our only option. He was a pretty strong fellow because he was a trained gymnast who developed depression in recent years. The next day, we saw him doing push-ups in his room. The kind of horizontal push-ups where his feet didn’t touch the ground and just all arms!

                It was fortunate for us that the great escape turned out to be a failed attempt. This patient could have harmed himself or worse if he succeeded. Gymnast, he was, but Steve McQueen he was not.

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Personal Vendetta or Witch Hunt?

Several weeks after I blogged about the fire alarm and intercom system at work (http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/03/fire-drill-that-didnt-work-so-well.html) that got me in trouble thus receiving a final warning (http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/04/final-warning-how-i-got-in-trouble-due.html), and despite my charge nurse reporting the same thing using the proper channels, our findings have not been addressed or maybe just totally ignored.

 I’m starting to believe what my friends have been telling me all along: that the safety officer/head of security has made the incident a vendetta against me by reporting my blog to the human resources department instead of looking at our concerns. I have not arrived at this conclusion easily, but the actions of the two departments who handled my write up didn’t seem to be concerned about how the alarm system did not work so well. Rather, they chose to find fault in the messenger instead of addressing the message. Maybe they took offense when a lowly employee found something they didn’t foresee.

This may be unrelated but there has been a rash of write ups against the Mental Health Unit staff in recent weeks, so maybe the administration is on a witch hunt for one reason or another.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to walk the straight and narrow path so they would not find another reason to counsel me again, or worst, fire me for exercising my freedom of speech.

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Final Warning! How I Got In Trouble Due To Blogging

              

               In case anyone is wondering why I’ve been so quiet lately, it’s because I feel like my wings have been clipped or the wind has been taken out of my sails, partly through my own fault. A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about a fire drill at work and this has gotten me in a whole lot of trouble: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/03/fire-drill-that-didnt-work-so-well.html . The problem was I sent that link to the safety officer of my workplace to read about my concerns regarding the fire alarm system. He in turn forwarded my email to the human resources department who addressed the issue in a different manner that I totally did not expect. It was not the content of the blog that they scrutinized but the time of night I posted it. The time stamp on the bottom of each blog post gave me away. My mistake was that I was not supposed to be blogging while at work. If I did it during my break time it would have been okay. When they looked at my time card and compared it to the timestamp of the blog, they got me where they wanted, regardless of whether my concerns were legitimate or not. They also looked at other posts and saw similar timestamps. I received a Final Warning counseling for that.

                I usually post at that time of night because, in another country, that is when my friends are ending their day and most likely to go online and read it. Well, losing my job is not worth the small number of hits on my blog just so my friends can be updated. I regret the error of my ways wholeheartedly and for my Good Friday penitence, I swore that I will not post during work time again.

Although I feel that my concerns were legitimate, it was the time and method of my reporting it to the proper authority that I erred. I was hoping that they would have been at least a bit appreciative for my bringing a problem to their attention. In the end, I realize what I did was stupid and I exercised poor judgment for sending a link. Now that I’ve received my final warning, I wonder what they are going to do to address the problems with the fire alarm system. I haven’t heard from them about that yet. After all, that blog was written not as a criticism but as a safety concern for the patients we serve and the people who work in the building. I suppose because I’m at the bottom of the totem pole, I don’t get a response to my concerns, but they can find reason to write me up for a final warning. Because I have no defense, what can I do other than go meekly with my tail between my legs. I don’t know if they missed the point of my email or ignored it completely and just considered the time stamp of the blog. However, I accept their verdict. You can be the best worker in the world (which I’m not), but if you take a slip like this, nothing is going to save your job.

A few years ago, the Dixie Chicks made a documentary movie called SHUT UP AND SING. I should do myself a big favor by keeping a low profile, just do the job I’m paid to do, stop writing, and just SHUT UP AND WORK!

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