The Impaired Nursing Practice There could be various …show more content…
There are many examples that show both the impaired nurses and the patients are extremely affected by the impaired nurse practices. One example is that in 2009, by injecting himself with patients' pain medicine and refilling the syringes with saline, a hospital technician infected at least 46 patients with hepatitis (Budryk, 2014). It was the third hepatitis outburst due to the worker use of patient syringes, the other two were happened in Denver and Jacksonville, Fla., therefore, according to federal records, hundreds of healthcare workers were disciplined or prosecuted for drug diversion or similar misconduct (Budryk, 2014). Therefore, early detection of the problems and effective treatments are vital for the substance misuse and addiction, in order to restore the quality of the life of the impaired nurse and provide safety to the patients (Huston, 2017). Substance misuse and addiction are diseases that can cost lives, if the intervention and treatment were delayed, while they can be treated successfully by recognizing early and treating aggressively. However, “Over 95% of self-identified impaired nurses were currently employed and unknown to their employers as having a substance use problem” (Huston, 2016, p. 295). This information shows that the impaired nurses put the patients and themselves at risk by continuing the critical nature of substance use