Quote From: foxylass The hospital had no right to ask you to perform nursing & cleaning duties if you were employed in the capacity of secretary. You need to recruit evidence such as affidavits from other employees who witnessed the requests for you to undertake these duties. The hospital is liable for any claims made against them by patients you cared for at their request.
I am so glad I do not work for a private hospital system and know I and my fellow employees all know where the lines are. I would never ask the unit secretary of our pediatric ICU to watch a patient while I went to lunch ,went to bathroom or to assist in any patient care at all. She is not qualified and cannot be held responsible for any orders I may give her other than secretarial. This situation is disgusting and typical of a private system where important rules are flaunted. I have seen people in Australia placed in similar situations by a private system intent on profit before people at any cost to the people even endangering their lives. If you can prove that the hospital insisted you perform these duties then you have a case. Gather evidence carefully and you can send them to the wall for putting you in this situation. There are medicolegal implications for allowing unqualified staff to care for patients.It would be like me as an RN performing surgery !
I can't thank you enough for your response. My sister is a nurse also she works in the Operating room at a totally different hospital. I hate the fact that a health facility can have such an impact on the health of an individual. I am going to contact a lawyer (they get paid if I get paid). I never had the intention of getting money out of this, however I have lost so much money in the past because of this situation. I had only asked to have my status changed in my human resource file from abandonment to resigned or even quit. I then could at least get back in the field I have been an Lab secretary and became a EKG/phlebotomist. What this hospital did to me had totally prevented my to get any type of job connected to them.
I also think that patients would be very unhappy to know about this.
