Two nurses have been fired after they were caught sleeping on their shift while a mental health patient was looking for their assistance.
32-year-old Christopher Smith from England has been struggling with suicidal thoughts following the stillbirth of his child and the loss of his beloved grandma.
After the man attempted to take his own, he was sent to Priority House in Maidstone where mental health workers, such as the two nurses in question, are supposed to take care of high-risk individuals.
Unfortunately, Mr. Smith didn’t receive much help as two nurses were caught sleeping at the time he needed someone to talk to the most.
“When you’re in that moment of crisis and you can’t remember why you’re there, you just need to speak to someone,” he said.
“I’d been brought in the night before and woke up around 4 am. I still really needed to talk to someone as I couldn’t stop thinking about hurting myself.
“I tapped on a door but got no answer, so I tried again. Then I peeked around a window and saw them sleeping. I thought no way, I couldn’t believe it.
“I felt even more frustrated that these two ladies were actually being paid to sleep, there are people crying out for these jobs who could be helping others who are in a crisis.”
Following an internal investigation, the institution sacked the two healthcare workers and thanked Christopher for filing a report.
“We are grateful to the person who quite rightly raised this concern with us,” they expressed. “As soon as it was brought to our attention, we carried out an investigation and found those concerned were employed through an agency and NHS Professionals and were not permanent staff of KMPT.
“This type of behavior is not what we expect from anyone providing care to our patients and they will not work with us again.”
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Replaced!