Can A Nurse Be Work To Death Case Study

Can a Nurse Be Worked to Death? A December 2014 article in the American Journal of Nursing, written by Roxanne Nelson raises the question of liability in a court case. Elizabeth Jasper, a Registered Nurse was killed in a car crash while driving home from working a twelve hour shift. Her family believes that her death was the result of her being overworked. Elizabeth’s husband, Jim Jasper, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital where his wife worked. He believed and stated publicly that due to the hospital’s staffing shortage she was worked to death. This case raises some important questions: 1.who is responsible for Elizabeth Jasper’s death? 2. What can be done to prevent this from happening to another nurse?
Sleep deprivation or falling asleep while driving has caused more driving deaths than drug and alcohol use combined. The author reports that an American Automobile Association study concluded that one in six fatal accidents are due to drivers that are sleep deprived and fall asleep while driving. The attention given to tired and fatigued nurses has been for the safety of the patient, not the nurses. Edie Brous, a nurse attorney thinks that both the nurse and the hospital can be held responsible for an accident. The hospital can be held liable if they knew the nurse was too tired to drive …show more content…
If a nurse is assigned to work a long, twelve or sixteen hour shift, then that nurse has the responsibility to get the proper rest. Nurses must let their employer know that they are tired and unable to work past their schedule shift. That is important because it insures that the nurse has transitioned the responsibility to that of the employer. The employer is now responsible for any consequences. Brous states that nursing licensure boards hold the nurses accountable for knowing their limits, meaning an employer cannot be held responsible if a nurse has a medical error because he/she worked while