N.S. nursing home staff left unit unattended during smoke breaks: report
N.S. nursing home staff left unit unattended during smoke breaks: report
By: Michael Tutton, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Excerpts:
HALIFAX, N.S. - Staff at a Nova Scotia nursing home repeatedly left infirm patients unattended while they went for smoke breaks, including one resident left lying on a bathroom floor, says a Health Department inspector's report.
The three employees at a unit at the R.K. MacDonald home in Antigonish took their seven-to-15-minute cigarette breaks together outdoors on "several occasions" during the May 5-6 night shift last year.
Donna Dill, director of monitoring at the continuing care division of the Health Department, described the incident as "serious" because "if residents are left unattended anything can happen."
"They're in nursing homes so they're supervised and attended," she said in an interview.
The inspector wrote that "when the staff were in the courtyard at midnight, an incident occurred where a resident was found on his bathroom floor. The call bell was pulled by the resident's roommate, who was requesting for the bathroom light to be turned off."
*Click here to read the full article: http://www.cjad.com/news/14/889222
*Click here to read related thread: http://foreign-nurse.lefora.com/2009/01/05/third-hand-smoke-new-health-hazard/page1/#post2242265
This is not to offend anyone.
This is why I think there should not be room for chain smokers in healthcare, including medical doctors. If they are going to smoke, they should do it on their own time and where no one can recognize them as being healthcare professionals.
Healthcare professionals should be setting the example. Secondly, notorious chain smokers do have this habit of taking this smoke breaks every so often that it disrupts anything they are curently doing. Also, some do this smoke break sessions in groups as well w/c just adds to further disruptions. Lastly, there are now new studies of 3rd-hand smoke and so this gets passed along patients as well.
This Topic Is Locked To Guest Posts
It's been a while since this topic was active, if you'd like to get it going again, please post as a registered member
