I saw this article and wondered if anyone has come across a nurse who stole drugs, or used drugs while at work.  If so, did you turn them in?  If you have never seen it, would you turn them in if you did come across it?  I am just curious on others views.

Read the article, it is pretty interesting.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/iraj-zandi-nurses

First you are legally obligated to report even suspected on-the-job impairment, drug theft or any other crime committed on the hospital or clinic grounds. That out of the way here is a true story that is far from an isolated incident.

I worked Pediatrics in 1981 in a fairly large hospital in New Mexico. Our unit adjoined the surgical floor. One night the surgical floor charge nurse called and asked me, since I was one of only 2 men on both floors, to come check an employee restroom for "missing" nurse. I went in and found this guy who (an LVN) passed out on the john, a syringe still hanging from his arm. Recent injection sites in various stages of healing were noted.

I reported this to the charge nurse who promptly went in to witness this herself. The supervisor was paged and in short order this nurse was removed from the john and taken to the security office. Reports were filed and a complaint filed with the NM Board of Nursing. The result?

The LVN was offered a diversion program, his license was placed on probation pending successful completion of rehab and the hospital fired him. The charge nurse, however, admitted that she had had suspicions at times that this fellow was "possibly" taking patient drugs and that he appeared "impaired" at times. Her license was suspended for 1 year! Why the difference between criminal and the one who reported the criminal? He was impaired and she was not. Additionally she had not reprted these suspicions and was thus in violation of the Nurse Practice Act as written at that time.

So, if you want to keep YOUR license I would suggest reporting even strong suspicions. You should be able to remain anonymous, at least while your suspicions are investigated and you have protected patients, the facility and your own behind.

Those are great stories that we can all learn from.  In my opinion, it isn't anything to mess around with.  I'm not willing to lose my license for not turning someone in, and it isn't safe for the patient who has that person as a nurse.  I have to agree that I would also turn them in.  

While I would turn in someone I suspected of stealing drugs, or being impaired on the job, I would also want to be sure I wasn't making unfounded accusations.

Another incident I had to deal with was when I worked in corrections.  We used blister packs to make 30 day supplies for the inmates, these were kept in a med cart in the control pod on the blocks.  Routine meds were passed by the day nurse (I worked evenings) or by the officers we trained as med aides.  On duty officers passed prns when medical staff was not on duty (at night, and on weekends).  Each blister pack had a MAR stapled to it:  the inmate signed for the med, and the officer signed the inmate received it.  These blister packs included narcotics and other controlled substances, and the cart was not locked.

One day I was refilling blister packs that would not last through the coming weekend, and noticed one pack of an inmate's Vicodin was almost empty, though the inmate had only signed for a few doses.  Alarmed, I went through every blister pack from every block and found more missing narcotics.  Some could be attributed to failure to sign on the part of busy officers (ie, ones with only one missing dose) but there were multiple ones with multiple doses missing.  I made copies of every MAR, photocopied every blister pack, took copious notes of what was missing, then called the physician who was my employer (I was a subcontracted nurse, not a county employee).  He immediately ordered me to report the issue to the major who ran security for the jail, and to not to discuss the issue with anyone else.

The major was very upset, and began an investigation.  It didn't take long for us to figure out who it was.  Unfortunately, the jail's internal affairs officer told the suspect he was on his way out to search the guy's car and house so of course nothing was found.  I was livid--all my hard work went for nothing.  Once the cat was out of the bag, we put locks on the carts, and only the shift supervisor was allowed to pass prn meds--which didn't make them happy as it was a time consuming pain in the ass for them, and the inmates were all too happy to deluge them with demands for their meds.

We made the mistake of thinking we could trust the correctional officers.  Most of them are trustworthy, but I learned the hard way every jail has a few who are just as bad as the guys they are guarding.

Thank to everyone that has been posting.  I am a new nurse who knows where I stand on the issue, but I appreciate everyone sharing their stories.  It shows me that it is a problem in some situations as well as  how others handle the situation.  Thank you again!!  :)