Nurses to Protest Sentencing in Tennessee Patient-Death Case

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nurses have been touring from across the nation to protest on Friday exterior the courtroom the place a former Tennessee nurse was scheduled to be sentenced for inflicting the dying of a affected person.

RaDonda Vaught was discovered responsible in March of criminally negligent murder and gross neglect of an impaired grownup after she unintentionally administered the improper medicine. She faces as much as eight years in jail, though such an extended sentence is unlikely given she had no prior offenses. A presentencing report rated her threat of reoffending as “low.”

Vaught’s conviction has change into a rallying level for a lot of nurses who have been already fed up with poor working circumstances exacerbated by the pandemic. Some have left bedside nursing for administrative positions whereas others have left the occupation all collectively, saying the danger of going to jail for a mistake has made nursing insupportable.

The sentencing comes a day after Worldwide Nurses Day, and a few nurses have been driving from a march for higher working circumstances in Washington D.C. on Thursday to the sentencing in Nashville. Nurses plan to collect two hours earlier than the scheduled morning begin of the sentencing listening to.

“Everybody I discuss to is livid about it,” stated Janie Harvey Garner, a nurse who based the advocacy group Present Me Your Stethoscope and helped elevate cash for Vaught’s protection. “She shouldn’t have been in a position to follow nursing once more. She ought to have been disciplined by the (nursing) board, however jail?”

Harvey, who was driving up from Georgia for the deliberate protest, stated it was “terrifying” to assume that she could possibly be prosecuted for a mistake and predicted that nurses will begin making an attempt to cowl up their errors reasonably than report them. Vaught reported her error as quickly as she realized her mistake.

Vaught, 38, injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey as an alternative of the sedative Versed on Dec. 26, 2017. Vaught freely admitted to creating a number of errors, however her protection legal professional argued systemic issues at Vanderbilt College Medical Middle have been at the least partly in charge.

On the nurse’s trial, an skilled witness for the state argued that Vaught violated the usual of care anticipated of nurses. Along with grabbing the improper drugs, she didn’t learn the identify of the drug, didn’t discover a pink warning on the highest of the medicine, and didn’t stick with the affected person to test for an opposed response, nurse authorized guide Donna Jones stated.

Leanna Craft, a nurse educator on the neurological intensive care unit the place Vaught labored, testified that it was frequent for nurses at the moment to override the system as a way to get medicine. The hospital had lately up to date an digital information system, which led to delays in retrieving medicines. There was additionally no scanner within the imaging space for Vaught to scan the medicine in opposition to the affected person’s ID bracelet.

The jury discovered Vaught not responsible of reckless murder. Criminally negligent murder was a lesser offense included beneath the unique cost.

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