Hello fellow Nurse, this is your weekly handoff. Some quick and dirty nursing news that’s worth sharing. Enjoy!

Something to absolutely not believe

Four patients walked into Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville for routine joint replacements last month and were injected with potassium phosphate instead of spinal anesthetic. At least two are paralyzed from the chest down and one was still on life support at last check. The state report released this week is somehow worse than the headline: the pharmacy tech grabbed a nearly identical vial, the barcode scan failed so the info was typed in manually, two more techs missed it, and the pharmacist signed off after reviewing the photos for 29 seconds. One patient screamed mid-injection that something was wrong and later described it as a burning in her spine like liquid hell, but the anesthesiologist reportedly wasn’t concerned at the time and treatment was delayed for hours. A full week after the incident, investigators found the potassium still sitting on the pharmacy wall with no high-alert label. Oh, and this is the same city that prosecuted RaDonda Vaught, and the TBI has opened a criminal case. Three immediate jeopardy citations and every corrective action plan rejected. Unbelievable.

Something to make you furious

On September 1, the roughly 750 nurses and case managers at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan hit one full year on the picket line, the longest single-hospital nurse strike Nurse.org has tracked in nearly a decade. The fight is over nurse-to-patient ratios, premium pay cuts, and whether striking nurses get their old positions and shifts back. Henry Ford says it has hired replacement nurses, is losing about $50 million a year at Genesys, and will not guarantee anyone their exact former assignment. The NLRB has now dismissed three of the union’s unfair labor practice charges, the latest on August 27, so the feds aren’t exactly riding to the rescue. And remember, when a gunman attacked a church in Grand Blanc last fall, striking ER nurses crossed their own picket line to help and say administration asked them to leave. One year, no contract, and ratios are still the sticking point. Sound familiar?

Something to make us nurses proud

When a fire broke out in the newborn nursery at Pakistan’s largest public hospital in Islamabad, nurse Razia Noreen dropped the syringe she was prepping, ran into the smoke, and carried a baby out pressed against her chest. Security footage shows she was inside for eight seconds, and investigators say the room became unsurvivable within about two minutes. She and another nurse then dropped to the floor and tried to crawl back in for the others until the flames forced them out. The baby she carried was the only one of 15 to survive, and Noreen says she barely sleeps and keeps apologizing to the mothers she couldn’t reach. Pakistan is giving her the Sitara-i-Khidmat, one of its highest civil awards, and eight hospital officials have been suspended over the fire safety failures. She insists she wasn’t being a hero, just doing what any nurse and any mother would do. That is the job. That is us.

Something from a Subscriber

“I work nights on a med-surg floor and last month I had a 91-year-old patient who was sweet as pie during the day but sundowned hard every night around 2 a.m. One night he hit the call light and when I walked in he was sitting bolt upright, dead serious, and told me the “other nurse” had been in his room stealing his socks. I checked. Socks were on his feet. He looked down, looked back at me, and said, “Well, she put them back then. Sneaky.” I lost it.

The next night he was more oriented, and I mentioned the sock thief. He laughed so hard he set off his tele alarm, then got quiet and told me his wife used to steal his socks every winter because hers had holes and she never wanted him to buy her new ones. She passed two years ago. He said maybe she had come to visit. I am not going to lie, I had to go “chart in the hallway” for a minute after that one.

He was discharged to his daughter’s house a few days later, and on his way out he handed me a pair of hospital grippy socks “for the sneaky nurse.” They are in my locker. I am never throwing them out.”

— Danielle R., Med-Surg RN, Ohio

We want to hear more from you! Submit your funniest or strangest or most heart warming nursing stories and we will pick one to share every week! This will be shared anonymously- so don’t be afraid to add some humor and flare and cursing, just like we love here!

Please submit all stories to: [email protected]

Please be conscious of HIPAA and omit any PPI or detail that may give hints to the people, hospital, and nurses involved in your story. We may slightly alter your story or change names for this reason. Your story may also be shortened and slightly altered to fit the size of the blog. Happy writing!!

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