It truly is a shame to see people blatantly doing the wrong thing in clinical practice. Today I accompanied one of my general practice supervisors to the nursing home she regularly attends, to care for the residents. On the way over there, the GP told me that she has been having difficulty with a new registered nurse there, who has been frequently requesting that patients inappropriately be prescribed sedatives for "behavioural problems".
I don't feel that I should publicise too many of the details, but by the end of our visit today we had discovered that the nurse had been administering a homeopathic "remedy" for these behavioural problems, to at least three-quarters of the residents. The remedy had been written up in the patient's drug charts, along with a sticker stating the treating doctor's name, implying it had been prescribed by the doctor, who in reality had no knowledge of the treatment. Meanwhile, this nurse has apparently been charging the families of the patients for the "treatment".
The mind boggles at how someone involved in healthcare, whose utmost priority should be the welfare of their patients, can think that it is ok to give a potentially harmful substance without any authorisation. Wouldn't you think that an alarm bell would ring in your own mind, that this is NOT the right thing to do, when you have to engage in deceipt by putting the sticker on the drug chart that implies that the doctor ordered the medication?!
As to what happens next, it has been reported via the appropriate channels, and I suppose we shall see.
Thursday, June 10
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