A local nurse who was reprimanded by the Nurse’s Association of New Brunswick is speaking out in hopes of breaking what she calls the negative culture of silence in the healthcare system.
Denise Elaine Crawley admits to our newsroom that she made mistakes, but feels the situation was not handled in the best interests of herself or the patient because appropriate follow-up was not done.
The Association’s Discipline Committee ordered conditions be imposed on Crawley for incompetence and professional misconduct without offering specifics.
“The frustrating thing for me were these very damaging accusation which the association could have given more weight to — they didn’t — but they could have,” says Crawley.
One of her mistakes involved getting morphine out ahead of time for a patient during her morning rounds but she says it was locked up in her medication cart. Another mistake was made involving insulin but a second nurse caught it in time.
An anonymous source who works in healthcare tells us they know of other people who have gone through or may be going through the same type of situation as Crawley.
“There are inherent issues within the nursing profession,” Crawley tells us. “There’s not enough regulation at the top, you see toxic work environments, you see bullying you see — another name for it is — horizontal violence.”
We have reached out to the Nurse’s Association of New Brunswick for comment on this matter.