A nurse in Australia was caught video chatting with her family while on duty, and she ended up turning off a patient’s monitor because it was too loud for her.
As a result, the patient’s condition deteriorated without any alarms being transmitted to other professionals, and the 85-year-old patient died. Surveillance footage from the hospital also revealed that the nurse neglected her duty and only checked on the patient once in a 10-hour period. The incident has prompted worries about patient safety and healthcare personnel’s accountability. It serves as a reminder of the need of adhering to established standards and keeping alert while on duty in a medical setting.
According to The Mirror, on July 29, 2019, nurse Geraldine Lumbo Dizon was working the night shift at Sydney’s Nepean Private Hospital when she received a video call from her family in the Philippines. She began speaking and continued for an hour.
During the call, she decided to unplug a patient’s physiological monitoring gadget since it was too noisy. The patient had heart and kidney problems and needed to have his vital signs monitored. The patient’s heart rate quickly became critical, but because the monitoring equipment was unplugged, other medical personnel missed the signal.
It wasn’t until the next morning’s day shift rounds that medical personnel found the monitoring device had been unplugged. According to the investigation, the patient’s cardiac monitoring device recorded sluggish heart rate data at 7:07 a.m. on July 30, 2021, but other medical personnel missed it since the alert was turned off. Despite resuscitation efforts, the patient died.
Dizon later took the nurse to court, claiming that she had turned off the monitoring device at the behest of another patient. The judge, however, did not trust her story. Surveillance footage from the hospital also revealed that Dizon was careless, only checking on the patient once every ten hours.
