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Nurse Pays For Her Good Deed
Donn Esmonde / The Buffalo News
October 31, 2008
They ought to give her a medal. Instead, she got misused. If this is how they run the show at the Erie County Home in Alden, somebody ought to be shown the door.
Joyce Diasparra was driving home two weeks ago after a tough shift. Diasparra is head nurse of Unit S, a wing with about 50 patients. She had worked until 8 p.m. — five hours after her regular shift ended. She had just left when, through the darkness, she saw him, walking on Walden Avenue: a patient who was brought to the County Home after trying to kill his wife. He had sneaked out and climbed a fence.
Diasparra did not have a cell phone to call for help. She did not want to deal alone with a potentially violent man. Concerned about the safety of the patient and for anyone he encountered, she drove back to the nursing home to get help. She found a security guard, who jumped in her vehicle. They drove back, got the man into her SUV and brought him back safely.
Diasparra is 56, with a full, friendly face and a nurse’s bedside manner. She got pats on the back from co-workers the next day for handling a tough situation.
The glow lasted until she was called in Oct. 22 by the County Home’s director of nursing. Diasparra was reprimanded and suspended for a day without pay. According to the Disciplinary Action Report, she made a mistake by leaving the man on the road to go back for help. She should have, according to the nursing director, put him in the vehicle and brought him back on her own.
Diasparra was dumbfounded. “With [the patient] being possibly unstable, I didn’t trust that I would be able to get him in my truck and back safely,” she said this week in the dining room of her tidy home in Lancaster. “I didn’t want to endanger his life, or mine.”
It is more than a week since the suspension. Diasparra still is upset.
“I feel like I was treated unfairly,” she said. “I don’t know how else I could have handled it.”
It sounds to me as if she did the right thing. Backing her up is the security guard, Dave Bubar. “It would not have been wise for her to deal with [the patient] on her own,” he said. “I had trouble getting the guy into the car, and I’m a big boy.”
Diasparra has worked at the County Home for 15 years. She is a former Employee of the Year. The incident, in fact, underlines her dedication. She was off duty. She could have seen the patient on the road and ignored him. She could have gone back to the County Home and sounded the alarm, but stayed behind and let security deal with him. Instead, she went back with the guard and helped secure a potentially dangerous patient. For that, she was punished.
County Home spokesman Tom Quatroche said that there is more to the story but that he “could not provide further details” on a personnel matter. The suspension report notes that the patient was “upset” during the day and blames Diasparra for not dealing with him in a better way. Yet she alerted the nurses on the incoming shift and noted his agitation in the log book.
There are by-the-book regulations that might not have been followed to the letter. But in the big picture, Diasparra went above and beyond. For her trouble, she lost a day’s pay and got chewed out by her boss. She will likely retire rather than go back to work for the same supervisor who suspended her.
Diasparra learned a lesson: No good deed goes unpunished.
I hope it is a lesson that, the next time something like this comes up, she remembers to forget.
© YellowBrix 2008
TINA1TARSIER
10 months ago
28 comments
I have noticed a lot of deficiencies in nursing supervisors over the years. They make strange decisions and inappropriat disciplinary actions. However, I have also run acrossed a few great supervisors! I think there should be standardized training for supervisors and directors. Some of them got their positions just by their number of years as a nurse or because they have an advanced nursing degree. There should be training in handling "incidents", pt and family complaints, respectful disciplining of their nurses and other employees. I have been treated very disrespectfully on occasions when the superviisor's choice of priority is different from mine. Since we can't control how many things "need to be done" all at once, this is an increasing problem because of the increased number of patients nurses are expected to handle and the decrease in availability of patient care help-like PCTs, transport, pharmacy staff, etc.... The hospitals and other pt care facilities are budgeting themselves and us into impossible situations and then second guessing nurse's decisions. I think I could go on and on!
dcruicks
10 months ago
2 comments
It is lesson 101 that YOUR (the nurse's) safety must come first. I don't know where that Director of Nursing went to school, but that DON missed something. Your personal safety always comes first, then the patient's safety comes second. If this nurse would have helped him and then become a victim where would that facility have been? What would that DON have done if the nurse would have been killed? Right, NOTHING!!!!
dansangel
10 months ago
46 comments
And people wonder why there aren't more Good Samaritans, why more people don't go above and beyond their duties. I wonder. I agree, she should have been awarded a medal , not punished. That is what is wrong with alot of employers today, and may likely relate to the nursing shortage. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
LuciMarie
10 months ago
82 comments
You have to be kidding me? I would say that since the "glow" lasted a while, a few days at best, the director was obviously covering someone else's butt, possibly his own. At least the Nurse went back, got help and bought the patient back to the home safely! Who would have ever thought. Definitely makes you think about handling situations much differently in the future.
ccioffi
10 months ago
22 comments
Sounds like the director was trying to cover his own ass for loosing this man. The Nurse assessed the situation correctly (no phone, pt. has document violence) to go back for help. I'm sure someone might have been hurt if this was just a one-on-one. That institutions managment should be the one under the microscope!
reba0271
11 months ago
24 comments
Where is the ethics in this? If she hadnt stopped she would have been reprimanded, she did stop in order to save a patients from possible harm and was still reprimanded. What about the Good Samaritan Act? Surely she could appeal her one day suspension.
blessed70rose
11 months ago
4 comments
Wow! Give the woman a break, she did right. She could have done like most people do & keep going
saying "oh well I'm off duty now let someone else deal with it!" She was right to get help. Kudos to her. As for her boss WHAT A TOTAL JERK! She should have been praised for bringing the man back in.
texasdeern
11 months ago
12 comments
No wonder there is a shortage in nursing! Who wants to be a nurse with stories like this and the reality of the profession? I don't see a change anytime soon, only seems to worsen as time goes on. I am old school, and absolutely do not understand new school ideals and concepts.
ITIrecruiter
11 months ago
6 comments
I think she did the total wrong thing- what she should have done is gotten him by herself! This way he could have harmed her AND got a car to run away with... Of course I am being sarcastic but in all seriousness I think some people have no common sense!! I think this nurse thought quick on her feet and should be commended not condemned!!!!!
Old_School_Nurse
11 months ago
8 comments
Welcome to Nursing 2k, where Nurse Managers and the Nursing Administration is more into PR and looking good 'for the cameras than for the purpose of nursing; patient care! It iYears ago, It is truly a separation of class in Nursing, now. I was told years ago the purpose of the NA and LPN/LVN was to make the RN's shine. It seems now there has been a shift to include floor RN's. Does anyone notice the rift? RN's anre now flocking to mgmnt levels and bypassing floor work. Even a drop in Unit nurses . Seems the less to do with Hands on nursing, the better. Prabably because of the increases in lawsuits. To be blunt, the situation has gone out of control. Project "Nursing D. Patient" has come into the ER of Reality and is about to code. The question is, can he be saved?
patynola
11 months ago
2 comments
This is exactly why I hate nursing. This is why I will soon leave the profession. Nursing is a thankless job. Whenever a young person asks about nursing, I try & talk them out of it. I would never allow my child to be a nurse.
laura_m
11 months ago
20 comments
It sounds like the director of nursing needs to brush up on his/her CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS that are the BASIS of every RN program.
basiajune
11 months ago
104 comments
I can not believe she got in trouble for what she did. She could have just drove off and pretended she didn't see the patient! But she didn't want him harming anyone else. He tried killing his wife you think he isn't going to do anything to this woman trying to get him back to the hospital. This is the most dumbest thing I have ever heard! How is she going to be able to control him while she is driving trying not get into an accident if this man starts going crazy! I think she did the right thing and I think I would have done the same thing also. I would not go back to work for the same place either. She can go work at another medical place or retire like she said!
daroll
11 months ago
6 comments
OH yeah I just bet the director of nursing woulda picked him up and let him sit right in the front seat next to her--So much for the administration suppporting the nursing staff,eh??
Humhoney2006
11 months ago
6 comments
I worked for a nursing home for over two years, so this story doesn't surprise me. I found little to no respect from administration for nurses who work in long term/rehab care.