Charge Nurse Arrested For Refusing Police Request

cornflake · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
Why a Doctor? Because the Doctor is the one in charge of the patient and makes all decisions while that person is in the hospital. If not a Doctor then the Director of Nursing or someone WAY up the chain should have been dealing with the detective. I'm thinking as a nurse myself and how this would be handled at the hospital I used to work at. A conflict of that nature would have had the Doctor involved or the floor manager.
Thank you, I totally misread that and thought it was the other way around! However I think in any accident with a fatality everyone's blood would be tested for alcohol, or maybe things are just different where I live.

Again, as a nurse myself I think its horrible what happened to her.

It doesn't matter who is in charge of the patient -- though I don't think anyone in particular was, they were in the ER I think. I mean I'm sure there were doctors there but it's not as if the guy belonged to a particular physician.

Regardless, the cop wanted to take blood. The charge nurse is the one letting him or not. She knows the law, and hospital policy, and held the line on her patient's rights, and the hospital's policy, in the face of the cop. A doctor just has nothing to do with it.

She did, as she says, consult with more than one nursing supervisor when he argued with her. In the video, you can see she's holding out a connected phone so the person on the other end can hear/comment, as she offers him the hospital policy she's printed out for him, because he would not believe her on the basic law of the United States, which you'd think he should know at least as well as she does, given he's a cop and all.

It's not about the individual patient, is the thing. The cop had no warrant. He cannot come get, or get anyone else to give him anything, including records, or god knows the bodily fluids, of an unconsenting hospital patient who is not under arrest or suspected of a crime (and sometimes even then) without it. Doesn't matter who the patient is, or the doctor or anything else. It matters what the Fourth Amendment says. ETA: Which, sorry, as you're Canadian, and for anyone else who doesn't know, says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

MaeZe · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
Why a Doctor? Because the Doctor is the one in charge of the patient and makes all decisions while that person is in the hospital.

This is not true unless you are in a state with the older traditional definition of nursing.

The Nurse Practice Act in Utah:

(15) "Practice of nursing" means assisting individuals or groups to maintain or attain optimal health,
implementing a strategy of care to accomplish defined goals and evaluating responses to care
and treatment. The practice of nursing requires substantial specialized or general knowledge,
judgment, and skill based upon principles of the biological, physical, behavioral, and social
sciences, and includes:

(a) initiating and maintaining comfort measures;
(b) promoting and supporting human functions and responses;
(c) establishing an environment conducive to well-being;
(d) providing health counseling and teaching;
(e) collaborating with health care professionals on aspects of the health care regimen;
(f) performing delegated procedures only within the education, knowledge, judgment, and skill of
the licensee; and
(g) delegating nurse interventions that may be performed by others and are not in conflict with
this chapter

Nurses provide nursing care, the physician provides medical care and the hospital policies govern both. Nurses and physicians corroborate on patient care.

Jan74 said:
If not a Doctor then the Director of Nursing or someone WAY up the chain should have been dealing with the detective.

I believe they were. The nurse had her superior on the phone during the whole encounter.

Jan74 said:
I'm thinking as a nurse myself and how this would be handled at the hospital I used to work at. A conflict of that nature would have had the Doctor involved or the floor manager.
Thank you, I totally misread that and thought it was the other way around! However I think in any accident with a fatality everyone's blood would be tested for alcohol, or maybe things are just different where I live.

Again, as a nurse myself I think its horrible what happened to her.

You might be interested in reading the positions the ANA took that I posted a link to above. In particular:

... following her professional duty to advocate on behalf of the patient as well as following the policies of her employer and the law,” ANA President Pam Cipriano said in the statement.

I'm not sure which states still have the outdated definitions of nursing practice. In my state, WA, our definition of nursing practice includes executing the medical regimen but in no way does that define our practice.

"Registered nursing practice" defined—Exceptions.
(1) "Registered nursing practice" means the performance of acts requiring substantial specialized knowledge, judgment, and skill based on the principles of the biological, physiological, behavioral, and sociological sciences in either:
(a) The observation, assessment, diagnosis, care or counsel, and health teaching of individuals with illnesses, injuries, or disabilities, or in the maintenance of health or prevention of illness of others;
(b) The performance of such additional acts requiring education and training and that are recognized by the medical and nursing professions as proper and recognized by the commission to be performed by registered nurses licensed under this chapter and that are authorized by the commission through its rules;
(c) The administration, supervision, delegation, and evaluation of nursing practice. However, nothing in this subsection affects the authority of a hospital, hospital district, in-home service agency, community-based care setting, medical clinic, or office, concerning its administration and supervision;
(d) The teaching of nursing;
(e) The executing of medical regimen as prescribed by a licensed physician and surgeon, dentist, osteopathic physician and surgeon, podiatric physician and surgeon, physician assistant, osteopathic physician assistant, or advanced registered nurse practitioner, or as directed by a licensed midwife within his or her scope of practice.

I should point out also that there are things in nursing practice which doctors are required to follow such as infection prevention measures. Infection prevention has authority over medical practice and often infection prevention is under the department of nursing.

Chasing the Horizon · Sep 1, 2017

Good on this nurse for standing up to the police. The hospital system where I used to live preferred to just go along and help the police violate citizens' rights (a major reason I moved), so it's good to know not every hospital is like that. I'm with everyone else in hoping this ends with the officer fired and a nice settlement for the nurse, as having police abuse their authority over you, even when you don't suffer bodily harm, can be very traumatizing for the victim.

CWatts said:
If that's how he treats a white woman in a room full of witnesses, what does he do when he's alone with a person of color?

While I don't know if it was a factor in this case, I've seen enough blatantly sexist behavior from cops, often in the form of refusing to take "no" from a woman but then accepting the exact same "no" from a man, to seriously wonder if her gender influenced what happened.

Roxxsmom said:
What in the hell was going through this cop's head? How could he think this was okay or that there would be no repercussions. Do they usually get away with this kind of shit? I'm guessing that they do, and that's why he thought he could get away with it.

Maybe he used to get away with such behavior before body cameras (not to mention cell phone videos) were everywhere and can't adapt? I certainly remember the "bad ol' days" when cops could do pretty much as they wanted because citizens had no way of proving the truth. A hell of a lot has changed, just in the last couple of years.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

What I'm getting at is somebody should have stepped in, the nurse herself stated ""I was being bullied and nobody was willing to speak up for me" I think that is horrible and never should have happened. Somebody UP the chain should have intervened and not via telephone. I don't believe that officer would have arrested a Doctor if a Doctor had intervened and backed her up. Nurses put up with a shitload of abuse everyday, I see it all the time nurses getting treated horribly yet the Doctor is treated with respect. Its a common problem and the majority of nurses will experience some form of abuse in her career.

Somebody should have stepped in and I believe that entire scenario would have played out differently. Frankly it pisses me off that nobody assisted her

I can't imagine that happening at the hospital I used to work at, in fact I'm willing to bet it wouldn't since it wouldn't be one person alone defending the patients rights.

cornflake · Sep 1, 2017

Yeah, any of those cops standing around looking vaguely uncomfortable while he carries her outside could have stepped up. They're the ones who had a responsibility to stop him and arrest him for abusing his power and unlawfully detaining and assaulting her.

I imagine the other medical personnel were shocked, didn't know what to do in the moment, and were probably afraid they'd be next if they said anything. Cops should know what to do.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

cornflake said:
Yeah, any of those cops standing around looking vaguely uncomfortable while he carries her outside could have stepped up. They're the ones who had a responsibility to stop him and arrest him for abusing his power and unlawfully detaining and assaulting her.

I imagine the other medical personnel were shocked, didn't know what to do in the moment, and were probably afraid they'd be next if they said anything. Cops should know what to do.

I agree, the other officers should have stepped up and protected her, and so should her co-workers. I call bs on being scared, we teach our kids not to be a bystander. We teach them that there would be no bully if bystanders took action. Adults need to walk the talk. Somebody should have defended her and had her back, hospitals work as a team, there should have been somebody to assist her.

There's a quote I love "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" ~Desmond Tutu

The nurse said "Help me" and everybody stood by and did nothing to help her

mccardey · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
The nurse said "Help me" and everybody stood by and did nothing to help her

Exceptionalism.

Everyone thought someone should do something, except it shouldn't be them.

cornflake · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
I agree, the other officers should have stepped up and protected her, and so should her co-workers. I call bs on being scared, we teach our kids not to be a bystander. We teach them that there would be no bully if bystanders took action. Adults need to walk the talk. Somebody should have defended her and had her back, hospitals work as a team, there should have been somebody to assist her.

There's a quote I love "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" ~Desmond Tutu

The nurse said "Help me" and everybody stood by and did nothing to help her

I really think it was more 'wtf is going on' shock and the idea that the cops are going to start carrying them off rather than an actual reluctance to stand up for her.

Had I been standing there, and I am no shrinking flake, I think I'd have turned to one of the other cops and appealed to him, because the cop carrying off a nurse who was doing her job completely calmly and professionally is a level of unhinged and unpredictable I'm not going looking to get involved with. He's demonstrably nuts, has abandoned the normal rules of law, and is armed.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

MaeZe said:
This is not true unless you are in a state with the older traditional definition of nursing.

The Nurse Practice Act in Utah:
Nurses provide nursing care, the physician provides medical care and the hospital policies govern both. Nurses and physicians corroborate on patient care.

I believe they were. The nurse had her superior on the phone during the whole encounter.

You might be interested in reading the positions the ANA took that I posted a link to above. In particular:

I'm not sure which states still have the outdated definitions of nursing practice. In my state, WA, our definition of nursing practice includes executing the medical regimen but in no way does that define our practice.

I should point out also that there are things in nursing practice which doctors are required to follow such as infection prevention measures. Infection prevention has authority over medical practice and often infection prevention is under the department of nursing.

Yes, nurses provide care and we collaborate as a team, however a nurse needs a Doctors order for blood work, administering medications, etc, a nurse can't perform treatments without a doctors order. We aren't robots but we also do require orders to perform most medical treatments. Home care was an eye opener for me since as a nurse we make far more independent decisions compared to hospital units. For instance a nurse can't discharge a patient from the hospital, a doctor has to order the discharge, but in home care I discharge patients from care and no order is required. In the hospital a doctor has to write up a DNR, but in homecare the nurse can write it up. Hospitals are run very differently from home care. Also I'm going to assume there are vast differences from how our countries operate. Each province has their own College of Nurses and I'm sure each State has their own. Plus each hospital has their own policies regarding nursing. Police here can't draw blood. They would get a warrant for the initial blood work up that most likely would have happened when the victim was brought into the hospital.

I'm not saying what the nurse did was wrong, what I'm saying is there should have been other staff to assist her. The one thing I miss about the hospital is working as a team. Had it been me the hospital supervisor would have come to the floor, and most likely the doctor in charge would have been called. But here the police don't have any authority to take blood it has to be a technician and the technician can't take the blood without a doctors order.

mccardey · Sep 1, 2017

cornflake said:
and is armed.

*sigh*

MaeZe · Sep 1, 2017

cornflake said:
I really think it was more 'wtf is going on' shock and the idea that the cops are going to start carrying them off rather than an actual reluctance to stand up for her.

Had I been standing there, and I am no shrinking flake, I think I'd have turned to one of the other cops and appealed to him, because the cop carrying off a nurse who was doing her job completely calmly and professionally is a level of unhinged and unpredictable I'm not going looking to get involved with. He's demonstrably nuts, has abandoned the normal rules of law, and is armed.

I don't want to watch the video again but I believe the man in the white shirt was appealing to the other cop as they both followed the bastard cop out the door. It's hard to say from the video but yes, the others might not have done enough, but they also might have been backing the nurse at least verbally and/or in spirit.

It's hard to stand up to a cop, they can be so threatening and this one certainly was.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

cornflake said:
I really think it was more 'wtf is going on' shock and the idea that the cops are going to start carrying them off rather than an actual reluctance to stand up for her.

Had I been standing there, and I am no shrinking flake, I think I'd have turned to one of the other cops and appealed to him, because the cop carrying off a nurse who was doing her job completely calmly and professionally is a level of unhinged and unpredictable I'm not going looking to get involved with. He's demonstrably nuts, has abandoned the normal rules of law, and is armed.

Me too, I'm very blunt and very vocal. Apparently this all took place over an hour. Plenty of time to have someone higher up come in and deal with this. If I were her I would have brought in a manager and gone up the chain, everybody has a boss. If the police insisted I do something I knew was wrong I would go up the chain. Thank goodness the police, paramedics and nurses usually work very well together. I have the utmost respect for police officers and their work(my father was a police officer). I cringe to think he ever would have stood by and watched that happen. SMH. Maybe they need to take that out of the police hands, maybe they shouldn't be allowed to draw blood.

MaeZe · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
Yes, nurses provide care and we collaborate as a team, however a nurse needs a Doctors order for blood work, administering medications, etc, a nurse can't perform treatments without a doctors order. We aren't robots but we also do require orders to perform most medical treatments. Home care was an eye opener for me since as a nurse we make far more independent decisions compared to hospital units. For instance a nurse can't discharge a patient from the hospital, a doctor has to order the discharge, but in home care I discharge patients from care and no order is required. In the hospital a doctor has to write up a DNR, but in homecare the nurse can write it up. Hospitals are run very differently from home care. Also I'm going to assume there are vast differences from how our countries operate. Each province has their own College of Nurses and I'm sure each State has their own. Plus each hospital has their own policies regarding nursing. Police here can't draw blood. They would get a warrant for the initial blood work up that most likely would have happened when the victim was brought into the hospital.

I'm not saying what the nurse did was wrong, what I'm saying is there should have been other staff to assist her. The one thing I miss about the hospital is working as a team. Had it been me the hospital supervisor would have come to the floor, and most likely the doctor in charge would have been called. But here the police don't have any authority to take blood it has to be a technician and the technician can't take the blood without a doctors order.

From the sound of things, (the stories aren't perfectly clear) the cop was asserting his authority to obtain the blood specimen. There was a hospital policy addressing it, though the cop had the policy wrong. But I'm pretty sure that would have been a procedural blood draw, maybe one covered by a standing order by the medical chief of staff.

ED, OR and ICU nurses also have a lot of autonomy like home health care nurses do.

I follow up on staff exposed to blood. In the surgery centers the nurses often draw blood from the patient before I get there, no doctors are involved in the order. Just a couple months ago the nursing staff drew blood on a source patient in the ED for me. A police officer had been exposed to his blood. I know for a fact no one got a physician order for that. I took the blood with me and while I do order the labs, an order for the blood draw wasn't written in the chart. I drew blood on a nursing home patient just today, I documented in the chart that I drew it and why along with noting the patient and family member's consent, but I never write orders in the chart. Been doing it for almost 30 years.

These are procedures that are not done because of the patient's medical needs, so it's separate from patient care.

Most of the time the doctors are happy not to be involved in staff exposures to blood or communicable diseases, the staff members are the patients essentially and the medical staff are not usually responsible for employee health services.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

MaeZe said:
It's hard to stand up to a cop, they can be so threatening and this one certainly was.

Yep, and had a few more nurses and medical staff stood up for her I'm willing to bet the outcome would have been different. I can see the headline now "Entire nursing staff on burn unit arrested and unit left with no staff." Strength in numbers, if one person had stood up for her it would have made a difference. Can you see this officer arresting a doctor? Doubtful. Another instance of a nurse being abused while on the job.

MaeZe · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
Yep, and had a few more nurses and medical staff stood up for her I'm willing to bet the outcome would have been different. I can see the headline now "Entire nursing staff on burn unit arrested and unit left with no staff." Strength in numbers, if one person had stood up for her it would have made a difference. Can you see this officer arresting a doctor? Doubtful. Another instance of a nurse being abused while on the job.

I think that was the ED given where the exit door was the cop pulled the nurse through. She was the ED liaison nurse.

But I completely agree with you the ED attending physician was in the best position to stand up to the cop. On that basis rather than a responsibility for the patient's orders, we are in agreement.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

MaeZe said:
From the sound of things, (the stories aren't perfectly clear) the cop was asserting his authority to obtain the blood specimen. There was a hospital policy addressing it, though the cop had the policy wrong. But I'm pretty sure that would have been a procedural blood draw, maybe one covered by a standing order by the medical chief of staff.

ED, OR and ICU nurses also have a lot of autonomy like home health care nurses do.

I follow up on staff exposed to blood. In the surgery centers the nurses often draw blood from the patient before I get there, no doctors are involved in the order. Just a couple months ago the nursing staff drew blood on a source patient in the ED for me. A police officer had been exposed to his blood. I know for a fact no one got a physician order for that. I took the blood with me and while I do order the labs, an order for the blood draw wasn't written in the chart. I drew blood on a nursing home patient just today, I documented in the chart that I drew it and why along with noting the patient and family member's consent, but I never write orders in the chart. Been doing it for almost 30 years.

These are procedures that are not done because of the patient's medical needs, so it's separate from patient care.

Most of the time the doctors are happy not to be involved in staff exposures to blood or communicable diseases, the staff members are the patients essentially and the medical staff are not usually responsible for employee health services.

Agreed, alot of specialties will have standing unit orders or policies in place for common scenario's that may play out, and each hospital would be different. When I worked Pediatrics we knew the pediatrician so well that the orders would be written and ready for him to sign. But we still needed an order. When a co-worker of mine stuck herself with a insulin needle(she was re-capping, which is a huge no-no) they had to get the ER doctor on duty to sign off on orders for immediate blood work up on patient and he ordered a cocktail of drugs for her to take until the patients blood work was processed. She had to take hiv meds etc. I did not work ICU, but every unit I worked on we required Doctors orders for any labs, and medications. It drove us nuts that we couldn't have unit standing orders for basic things. But I agree many hospitals give their nurses much more autonomy. I also can't speak for the OR since I never worked there either.

Jan74 · Sep 1, 2017

MaeZe said:
I think that was the ED given where the exit door was the cop pulled the nurse through. She was the ED liaison nurse.

But I completely agree with you the ED attending physician was in the best position to stand up to the cop. On that basis rather than a responsibility for the patient's orders, we are in agreement.

Thanks, I can only speak from my own hospital experience and the attending would have been notified. But then again where I live police have no authority to draw blood, so this scenario wouldn't have played out. Its a sad day for both professions. I also wonder if she had been a male nurse(I had a a few male nurse supervisors) if it would have played out differently.

MAS · Sep 1, 2017

And apparently the police department has now apologized....

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/01/health/utah-nurse-arrest-police-video/index.html

MaeZe · Sep 1, 2017

Jan74 said:
Thanks, I can only speak from my own hospital experience and the attending would have been notified. But then again where I live police have no authority to draw blood, so this scenario wouldn't have played out. Its a sad day for both professions. I also wonder if she had been a male nurse(I had a a few male nurse supervisors) if it would have played out differently.

The news media is reporting that the gentleman in the white shirt telling the cop he was making a mistake was one of the supervisors. He's not the most assertive supervisor if that is true.

It's not clear where the attending was during this. Just the commotion would have brought most attendings out in the open, and given the patient's critical condition I can't imagine the attending wasn't there already.

talktidy · Sep 2, 2017

As a Brit looking at this from across the pond, I am interested to know whether anyone thinks this cop will be fired.

There have been egregious abuses of power by cops all over the US and few appear to have paid the price for their actions.

Ambrosia · Sep 2, 2017

The Salt Lake Tribune article gives more information. As much as we want to lay all of the blame on Payne, and he is deserving of a good bit of it, it isn't all his fault. He had orders from his watch commander to arrest her.

Payne — who says he wanted the blood sample to protect the patient, not punish him — said he was advised by Lt. James Tracy, the watch commander on duty that night, to arrest Wubbels for interfering with a police investigation if she refused to let him get the sample, according to his report.

Also, Payne ignored the man who was trying to stop him and told Payne arresting her was unnecessary as he had hospital administration on the way. (It is in the video.)

So, I don't think it would have made one bit of difference whether the person saying no to Payne was a nurse or a doctor in this instance. He was told to get the blood draw, period.

A University of Utah police officer and other officers, who provide security for the hospital, were present at time of the arrest and did not intervene.

Getting other cops involved to stop this rogue cop's behavior is the only scenario that makes sense. And that didn't happen. That's where their training failed the most, right there. It makes it worse, imo, that they were cops guarding the hospital. They should have been protecting her.

I am trying to understand why this happened, why another police department had so much influence over Payne and his watch commander that they went to these lengths to get what the other department demanded, even though it wasn't legal. Doesn't that seem weird?

However, the asshat has a real attitude. Payne really doesn't need to be around people, period. I hope they fire him from all his jobs.

As he stands in the hospital parking lot after the arrest, Payne says to another officer that he wonders how this event will affect an off-duty job transporting patients for an ambulance company

“I’ll bring them all the transients and take good patients elsewhere,” Payne says.

There is an internal investigation underway. I think the most ironic happenstance is the victim they were demanding a blood draw from to check for illegal substances is a cop.

Gray is a truck driver when he is not serving as a reserve police officer, according to the Idaho State Journal.

cornflake · Sep 2, 2017

Yes, he says he was told to arrest her, but whether he was, whether it was said in jest ('We don't have pc, what do I do if they won't let me?' 'Arrest 'em.' ), or what. Even if his Lt. was serious, that's nice, but he's not obligated to follow his superiour's command when his superiour is violating the law and telling him to.

So if the guy did really tell him to, I think the guy needs to be punished as well, but it's still on the cop carrying off a nurse.

Ambrosia · Sep 2, 2017

cornflake said:
Yes, he says he was told to arrest her, but whether he was, whether it was said in jest ('We don't have pc, what do I do if they won't let me?' 'Arrest 'em.' ), or what. Even if his Lt. was serious, that's nice, but he's not obligated to follow his superiour's command when his superiour is violating the law and telling him to.

So if the guy did really tell him to, I think the guy needs to be punished as well, but it's still on the cop carrying off a nurse.

Oh, he was told to do it. And the watch commander talked to her about it, or tried to.

Tracy said in his report that he spoke on the phone with Wubbels and told her he believed that they had implied consent to get the sample, but she cut him off and said she would not allow the draw without a warrant. He then went to the hospital and tried to tell the nurse why she was in custody, but “she appeared to not want to hear my explanation,” Tracy wrote.

cornflake · Sep 2, 2017

Ambrosia said:
Oh, he was told to do it. And the watch commander talked to her about it, or tried to.

Jesus. Can't imagine why she didn't want to hear your bullshit explanation about why you were violating the law and hospital procedure while she was cuffed in the back of a cop car.

Still primarily on the cop who physically assaulted and arrested her, imo. He was not obliged to break the law just because a superiour told him to.

Twick · Sep 2, 2017

This is another case of "she was warned, she was given an explanation, but nevertheless she persisted."

The fact that she was released in 20 minutes with no charges is *clear* evidence that this was a power play, not a genuine belief that she was violating the law. In any case, even if they believed they were correct, there was no indication of any tolerance for a fellow professional who believed *she* was correct as well. Just "here's what happens to you if you step out of line with us. It's not nice."

Charge Nurse Arrested For Refusing Police Request

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

MaeZe

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

Jan74

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Jan74

mccardey

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Jan74

mccardey

MaeZe

Jan74

MaeZe

Jan74

MaeZe

Jan74

Jan74

MAS

MaeZe

talktidy

Ambrosia

Grand Duchess

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Ambrosia

Grand Duchess

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Twick