just a thought………would the affected patient be willing or able to defend you (if necessary)if you went to the state about the issue?

maybe you should try and get a copy of your records (if you’ve gotten good evaluations in the past…) in case you have to find another job……which I really hope doesn’t happen……….but I’d think they wouldn’t want to risk firing you and setting off a larger maelstrom for themselves……..after all, if you no longer work someplace that is using bad practices, what incentive do you have NOT to report them as much as possible?

(these words are probably only half of what I really mean………best I can do………)

Wishing you all the best.

As a person with disabilities, I know firsthand how hard it is to get a job in this ablist world of ours. I also commend you for your honesty and humility in admitting your error. Someone said:

“An error doesn’t become a mistake unless you refuse to correct it.”

You have taken steps to correct yours, and I sincerely hope that the State (or your boss) does not cause you to lose your job over the incident.

Please report this to the State. You care so much about other people and their well-being, and as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” I’ll stand by you.

I’m also going to bring the Ombudsman’s phone number home with me tonight. Hopefully I’ll get up the nerve to call them over my weekend. (Why oh why do they not have an email addy?)

Also… I’m not so worried about losing my job over reporting my boss’s actions to the state. I’m worried about losing my job over my own actions. I’m sure there’s protections of some sort in place for the former, but I have no idea whether I’ll get a reasonable response to the latter. (Again, I should be getting into *some* trouble, but I’d say that being fired, for example, or winding up in jail, would be a bit of an over-reaction to a one time incident that the victim isn’t even upset about and that I’m already talking steps to make sure isn’t repeated. And I could see either of those punishments happening, either by the state or by my employer in response to an investigation by the state.)

More specifically, some of the resources here might be useful (maybe you can see if you can join their “Whistleblower Support Network” which is meant for people in the process of whistleblowing seeking advice–or for people who have already blown the whistle who have advice to share): http://www.whistleblower.org/content/wsn.cfm.

One of their publications (http://www.whistleblower.org/template/page.cfm?page_id=43) looks like it might be roughly suited to your situation.

Perhaps you would find it helpful to talk with the people at the Government Accountability Project, http://www.whistleblower.org. I don’t know a great deal about how they work, but I gather that they have worked with “whistleblowers” to work out how they can blow the whistle etc. I think they more typically work on corruption issues, but I would think the risks to the whistleblower and the process would be roughly similar. If nothing else it wouldn’t hurt poking around their web page to see if you’re comfortable communicating with them about your situation (in confidence). And if it turns out they can’t help directly for whatever reason, I would imagine (or hope) they could at least refer you to someone able to advise what your next steps could or should be.

I’ve been trying to find a way of saying this that doesn’t come across as me thinking that I shouldn’t get in trouble at all, ’cause that’s not the case. But I’m not completely buying the “you are not going to get in any trouble if you report this” thing, and I’m really having trouble talking myself into doing something that could so easily cost me my job. I’m autistic myself, and it took me a long time to find a job that fit me as well as this one does – I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I lost it.

1. There is protection for whistleblowers who are employed by nursing homes, and go to the State concerning abuse whether done by yourself or fellow employees.

2. The fact that the incident was recorded as a ‘tap’ is proof that there is other abuse going on in the home. Incidents get watered down to protect staff all the time. My own medical record was falsified so that when I told a staff to go away after she came into my room while I was naked (changing), without knocking, it was reported as “threatening bodily harm”, which I assure you never happened since I was too intimidated to ever act like that.

If your conscience is bothering you that much, GO TO THE STATE. We are not telling you that you’re a bad person, and we’re even telling you that you did the right thing going to your supervisor and doing anger management. You are not going to get into trouble for going to the State. Your employer might, but trust me, as someone who has survived all of this, the nursing home would stay open, perhaps under different management.

Forgive me if I seem a bit harsh, but I get really disgusted by the abuse that goes on with people who are supposed to “help” and “take care of us”, especially when I was capable of living independently (and do so now, kthxbai). It happens more than ANYONE realizes or wants to admit, and until major changes are implemented in the health care system, especially psychiatry, it’s going to keep happening.

My $.02

I think what people are asking is not just what you’re doing on this issue WITHIN the institution but whether you have ALSO reported the incident to State, as this would be legally required in any case.

I do report any abuse that I can (some things that would be considered abuse here aren’t considered abuse there, like forcing a resident to take their meds, forcing someone to go to an activity, or forcing someone to stick to their diet, so I don’t report those – no point – but I do make a point of not doing them myself and doing my best to help residents get around those issues) to the supervisors just as a general thing, and I’ve had pretty good results with that. In the three years I’ve been at this job I’ve only seen staff even threaten physical violence once, and I reported that to Nursing, and the staff person was fired within a week. That’s part of why I was so shocked at the response from my own supervisor. There’s probably lots of stuff that goes on that I don’t know about, but I can only report what I see.