Nurse Marge In Charge

Dear Nurse Marge,

I am so angry about this I am still shaking.  I work on the orthopedic floor.  One patient, who is quite elderly,  got a visit from her son.  He wasn’t there five minutes before he started shouting that someone had stolen his mother’s jewelry.

I can promise you his mother arrived on the floor without jewelry.  She’d been transported over from the nursing home, and of course they have a procedure to keep track of these things, and there was no way this woman arrived in our facility wearing a $45,000 bracelet!!!

Still, all the big wigs got involved.   I doubt this woman ever had $45,000 worth of jewelry in her life, much less on one wrist, but it has to be taken seriously.  I get that.  What’s really got me is that the administrator, IN FRONT OF THE PATIENT AND HER SON, looked me right in the face and said, “So, did you take the bracelet?”

Of course I said no, but why would he even ask that? Now my reputation is shot — if my own administrator can’t believe in me, why should I even stay here anymore?

Signed,

Not a Thief!!!!

Dear Not a Thief

Cool! Now that the heat is off, you can fence that little bit of bling, we can hop a cruise ship to the Caribbean, and go have a whole mess of fun!  Or maybe you can use the proceeds to shore up that flagging retirement plan.  Or do they pay so well at your facility that an extra $45,000 won’t make a difference?

In that case, I’ll take the money!

Seriously, don’t sweat your administrator’s question.  It’s not YOU he’s worried about.  It’s THEM.

Them in this case being the patient’s son.  I’m not sure what his game is, but he’s up to something.  Your administrator knows that, too.  There are any number of reasons why he asked you if you took the bracelet, but genuine curiousity is not likely one of them.

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge