Communication Breakdown In Nursing

I have witnessed a communication breakdown between two individuals, that ended up in a conflict, during the disaster of Katrina. All the “A” team was called in at 0730 and met in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) to relieve all the “B” team nurses for nights and days, so they could go home and be available to relieve the “A” team, after the alert had been lifted. All the extra unscheduled “A” team nurses pitched in to help their team members. However, one “A” team member, Janet, decided to go sit in the lounge in the cardiovascular unit (CV) and watch television (TV). After four hours the charge nurse informed Janet she was receiving a patient. Janet told the charge nurse, she was not scheduled to work, therefore why was she getting a patient. Then the charge nurse explained to Janet
Therefore, I ask Richard if the patient’s skin had any breakdown, he reported the skin was intact. Consequently, during my morning assessment, I asked a team member to help me reposition the patient. Hence, when I turned the patient, I found her on a bedpan. Moreover, I apologized to her, because I had not been told she was on the bedpan. The patient replied, “I have been on the phone since the day shift yesterday, also I have asked three people to get me off, no one came back.” Consequently, when Richard came back, I confronted him with my findings, he claims he did not put the patient on the bedpan all shifts. I explained to him, the patient’s injuries were severe and he had reported no skin breakdown, also charted the same, therefore, I informed him I must file an incident report. Suddenly, he became quite and went into the manager’s office to defend himself. Then, during the investigation, the previous day shift nurse of the patient, claimed she had put the patient on the bedpan, before leaving and had informed Richard. Consequently, a few days later Richard was