Hey everyone -
I recently had someone ask me about our policy for gathering psych patient's personal belongings/weapons from them during their stay in the ED if they're voluntarily or involuntary admitted but don't have a bed yet. I wasn't able to find anything on it - only for our inpatient hospital section, which doesn't apply to the ED. We asked our nursing director and he said that we don't have a policy intentionally for legal reasons.
I'm a little uncomfortable with how nurses aren't legally backed up by the hospital for our own safety as well as the patients with having no policy in place that allows us to gather their clothing, weapons, etc. Do other hospitals have policies to collect belongings and weapons? Or is this a well known legal issues that hospitals have?
Any information you have would be helpful - would like to gather as much information as possible!
Thank you!
------------------------------
Susie Montone BSN, RN, CEN
ED Staff Nurse
Shady Grove Adventist Healthcare
Rockville, MD
SusieMontone@gmail.com------------------------------