Go to work at the hospital that forced blood on your relative?

by rebel8 8 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  rebel8

  2 people approached me at work. I looked up, and it was 2 jws I used to know eons ago. They were genuinely nice people, some of the few jws in my cong that weren't horribly mean to me. So....I decided I have nothing to be ashamed of so I am not going to pretend I don't recognize them. (Plus I was curious how they would react.) They know I am not DFd but most of the jws tend to shun me anyway because I confronted many of them about their mean, unchristian behavior. Apparently people don't like to be called on the carpet lol.

  Me: "Do you know who I am? I'm xxxxx."

  Them: "Yes."

  (cue uncomfortable silence followed by nervous chatter)

  1 of them: "Oh, well, my daughter is going to xxxxx Hospital's School of Nursing."

  Then we finished our conversation. So the wierd thing is this: This woman's first baby had problems and xxxxx Hospital took her to court and won--gave the baby blood. It was a very publicized dispute. We were all told to avoid going to that hospital for care from then on.

  This school gives a break on tuition in exchange for a contract agreeing to work at their hospital for a certain period of time--meaning she will be at the school 2 yrs then working there for a few more years. There are many nursing schools in this community; in fact, there is another one practically next door. I think it's strange that daughter #2 chose to go to that particular school when the same price options are available down the street. I wonder if they're not in the org any more; I can't imagine making that choice if they were still "active".

  Puzzling.
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  Scully

  Maybe the specialty area that she wants to get into is offered at your hospital but not at all of the others and has a better recommendation or maybe even a better rapport with the school she's attending?

  In this area, clinical placements / preceptorships all depend on who your Instructor knows and has worked with previously. Your chances of getting a student placed are much better in hospitals / wards where the Instructors have developed a good rapport with the staff and nurse managers.
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  rebel8

  The interesting thing is that the high risk maternity center is the hospital she chose to work at. That is pretty much the only specialty they have that the others don't (except one other that's a whole 3 miles away).....if she chose that hospital because she wants to do high risk maternity nursing...that makes it even more ironic I guess.
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  Scully

  The other thing that might be a motivating factor could be a desire to act as a patient advocate in the event of a similar situation with other JWs, something that the parents wished they could have had at the time, instead of having a situation where their wishes were not honoured. She might be thinking in terms of being a kind of unofficial Hospital Liaison Committee for JW patients.
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  crazyblondeb

  I have to agree with what Scully said. I had the unfortunate experience of going up against an employee that was a jw and she got a job in public relations. She was there to give the inside scoop to the HLC. We went toe to toe when I helped the hospital get custody in order to get blood to a toddler that would have died. They have their motives and I wouldn't trust any of them. That is a high rish group to work with. Especially if your a jw. You can't just go and excuse yourself from every case that comes in that requires blood.
• 

  rebel8

  She was there to give the inside scoop to the HLC. We went toe to toe when I helped the hospital get custody in order to get blood to a toddler that would have died. They have their motives and I wouldn't trust any of them.

  That is so disturbing!

  So, in the case of the nursing student, she may be doing it to share confidential info with the HLC or to manipulate the hospital's actions in their favor? That is disturbing.

  I wonder what will happen if she is assigned to care for a patient who is receiving blood transfusions. Will she refuse to care for that patient?
• 

  wednesday

  
  She really can't refuse to administer blood , unless it is something she has worked out in advance with the hospital. If she throws a surprise at them, well she could lose her license. sometimes nurses that have been nurses for a long time and then convert to being jws get away with this stuff. people know them and the other nurses will trade off patients. But if you are working in a high risk area already, i have no clue how she will manage. She will need to adminster blood, and she can't ask her fellow nurses to do this everytime it happens. some have felt that they could do the blood set up but just not push 'start' so to speak. she is in for a rough road unless she has lots of friends on the unit she will be on.

  I predict they don't know what she is up to and will get rid of her as soon as they do. yes she has rights too. she can morally refuse to do something that violates her conscience. Catholic nurses many times have refused to assit with abo, or even a questionable d/c. But generally a nurse would not put themselves in a position to be confronted with this daily.

  I have heard some of the hlc are becoming nurses, so they intend to work from the inside . I think this may be a serious trend and one we should all be aware of. i have been very leary of the local hospitals, I know some jws work there. They will "rat' you out if they find out info about you. jws know that they are losing this blood war, and have decided to go underground.
• 

  Scully

  I wonder what will happen if she is assigned to care for a patient who is receiving blood transfusions. Will she refuse to care for that patient?

  Apparently that is left up to the individual nurse's Conscience™. When my folks first started with the JWs, they were students of a well-respected JW couple, the husband was an Elder™ and the wife was a nurse. She didn't have a problem administering blood transfusions. It was part of her job, and she felt that it wasn't up to her to make decisions for a patient based on her religious objections to blood transfusions.

  To me, that is a very reasonable point of view.

  However, when a JW student nurse came through our unit on a clinical placement recently, she was one of these ones who refused to have anything to do with blood transfusions or blood products. She refused to administer RhoGam to postpartum patients, even though the WTS doesn't object to the use of fractions. She even told the instructor that she would be able to draw blood for all procedures, just not ones that might involve the patient accepting blood transfusions or other blood products. This is completely ridiculous, imo. Sometimes you'll get a requisition for a Complete Blood Count to determine if the patient has an infection, and other times to determine whether their hemoglobin is low. Other times you'll get a requisition for a PTT and INR to see whether a patient needs heparin or whether they need to adjust their clotting factors. With babies, you check their bilirubin levels to see if they require phototherapy, or an exchange transfusion. You can't just split hairs like that. It would be too confusing for the rest of the staff.
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  wednesday

  It makes sense, but until recently the view I was aware of was real jws would not administer blood. In realty this would cause a real hardship for the other nurses, blood is a lot of hard work and no one would trade off patients like that. it it was a rare occurance, perhaps. But on a NICU unit, iti s not a rare ocurance.