This should be reversed. I’m a retired ICU nurse and have seen this situation a few times in my career. It’s medication error. It happens daily in hospitals, pharmacies and clinics. 90% of the time no harm is done. I have seen patients injected with potassium mistaken for a saline flush solution. There are many more safety systems in place today, but nothing is foolproof. Some days as a nurse I gave over three hundred IV medications, some of them potentially deadly. I have made medication errors. No, I never missed as many safeguards and warnings as this nurse did, but she didn’t go to work that day planning to kill a patient. An atmosphere of punishment is not going to make hospitals safer. If she goes to jail, they need to increase the prison system to include air traffic controllers, doctors, truck drivers, and website designers. In the past people were sent to additional training, put on probation, had their licenses suspended or revoked. This is the worst time to institute more fear into the profession of nursing. After forty years in nursing in the ICU and OR I have PTSD. There isn’t a night that goes by that I don’t dream about harrowing situations at the bedside. At least I didn’t have to consider going to jail. This is a step backwards.
This is a horrible mistake not a criminal act. There aren’t enough nurses now. They are already burnt out and quitting after the last couple years of insanity. Keep biting the hands that save your a$$, and there will be no one left that is qualified and you a can handle the 4 P’s yourselves.