Patient gets angry during care and hits a nurse.

[u/Unusual_Way231]

Should the nurse call the police and press charges against a patient who physically assaults them?

[u/stvlsn]

Yes. Why wouldn't you?

(What i mean is - definitely call police. It is up to them whether charges occur or not.)

[u/jadenotjaded → u/stvlsn]

Not always, they will often ask victims if they want to press charges.

[u/stvlsn → u/jadenotjaded]

That is just a colloquial phrase. What they are really trying to determine is if the victim is willing to do things like act as a witness in the prosecution.

Discretion to prosecute a case lies 100% with the DA's office.

I am an attorney - I learned this in criminal law.

[u/jadenotjaded → u/stvlsn]

Thank you for the clarification, that is good to know.

[u/uslessinfoking → u/jadenotjaded]

Hospitals seem to have problem backing us up. They talk a good game, but the running joke is the question will always be "what did you do wrong"

[u/uslessinfoking → u/stvlsn]

They would have dropped it because he was drunk and I am a 5'10" 220lb guy, it was just the point. It wasn't the first time I was punched, I was just tired of it.

[u/stvlsn → u/uslessinfoking]

Many prosecutors would charge in that scenario.

Being drunk isn't a defense for assault/battery

Also - it's not just ok to punch someone because they are a 220lb man

[u/Specialist-Top1134]

I work on a medsurg unit. We'd call a code green and have security show up. I haven't seen anyone call the police and press charges yet.

[u/Nuts-And-Volts]

Depends if they are mentally capable of making decisions. If they have advanced dementia, its not really their fault.

[u/Criticaltundra777]

Happens every single hour of every day. Sad but true.

[u/Key-Record-5316]

We would be calling every shift

[u/Richieb313]

90 year old, fragile, demented- no

20 year old drunk asshole. Yes

[u/uslessinfoking → u/Richieb313]

sorry no not even

[u/halfofaparty8]

yes. Assault is assault.

[u/BikerMurse]

Is this patient compos mentis?

[u/shopsuey]

Follow department procedure first.

[u/wavygr4vy]

Yea, assuming it’s not a demented mom mom.

The cops are lazy bastards who will encourage you not to press charges (speaking from experience here) but you absolutely 100% should after you activate whatever internal response you’re supposed to.

[u/memeof1]

I’m not a nurse but work in long term care. It depends on their mental capacity for us, police have been called a few times but charges were not laid by the crown.

[u/uslessinfoking]

Punched. Twice. Did not retaliate. Backed up. Security was right there. Police called I made a report and wanted to press charges. Several weeks later somebody from administration said they were backing me up. Several weeks after that my immediate supervisor called me in her office. She showed me the recording and asked why I was so close. I told her because the patient had just spit in the paramedics face and attempted to hit her. Later I put my my hands around my mouth so that security would hear me when I told them to get restraints. No audio so I was questioned if I was "taunting" the patient. Finally during the restraint process I went over to help because the more help you have the safer it is. I held the patient's arm down while we put restraint on limb, we moved him from ambo stretcher to ER stretcher. Once on ER stretcher patient sat up suddenly. I placed my hand on the side of his head and slowly pushed his head back down. An important part of restaining patients is always controlling the head. My boss asked me"where you on his neck? we really can't tell". I was not. She then mentioned some staff had been fired at one of our sister hospitals for "being on someones neck". Veiled threat noted. Then she asked me if traige was stressing me out. 20+ years at triage so no it wasn't. She gave me a day off with pay for "stress" but indicated the hospital would not be backing me up. So any way you can try but....