There is a story coming out of New York that is lighting a fire in the media and on the internet.  According to the New York Post, a devout Catholic nurse was allegedly forced to assist in a late term abortion procedure at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.   Below are excerpts from the New York Post article:

A Brooklyn nurse claims she was forced to choose between her religious convictions and her job when Mount Sinai Hospital ordered her to assist in a late-term abortion against her will.

The hospital even exaggerated the patient’s condition and claimed the woman could die if the nurse, a devout Catholic, did not follow orders, the nurse alleges in a lawsuit.

The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.

Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

Taking into account that the whole story of what happened is not represented in this article, and that there are a lot of questions left unanswered, I will try and piece together what went wrong with this case.  *I am not going to address the moralities of abortion, this post is about nursing.*

For a little real life perspective on my opinions, I have worked in women’s and infant’s health for 20 years (I became a nurse at the age of 5). I have worked in a student gynecology clinic, as a sexual health educator, as an OB and NICU staff nurse, as a charge nurse, as a clinical nurse specialist, and as a nurse manager.  Yes, I have been around the block.  What would I have done if a nurse came sobbing to me that she did not want to care for a patient who was getting a late term abortion?

In my career there have been on occasion, situations where a nurse refuses (usually it is begging and pleading) to get out of an assignment because of religious or emotional issues.  I have had nurses “refuse” to take care of a dying 24 weeker, because they just lost a baby themselves months earlier.  I have had nurses “refuse” to care for a mom undergoing an elective termination for a lethal anomaly at 17 weeks, because of religious reasons.  I have had nurses “refuse” to take care of the family laden with swastika tattoos because they were Jewish, and it was offensive to them.  So what did I do?  I switched their assignments.  It is not rocket science.  The other nurses who had to give up an assignment and switch might complain and moan, but tough shit.

Nurses are not robots.  We all come with life histories, and stories, and religious beliefs, and emotions.  I get that.  If a patient requests a different nurse, guess what we do?  We switch nurses!  So why can’t a nurse request the same thing.  I am not talking about a nurse who requests an assignment change because it is too hard, and she won’t get a break or whatever.  I am talking full fledged, Conscience Clause inducing morality here.  Again, I can’t for the life of me think of why they could not have assigned that patient to another nurse.  It was an OR case, and there had to be more than one nurse working that day.

Nurse do have a moral obligation to care for their patients, no matter what that patients views of humanity are.  If there were truly no other nurses to care for that mom, and that mom was in danger of dying or suffering irreparable bodily harm if she continued the pregnancy, than that nurse had an obligation to her patient.  Her inactions could have led to the death of the mother also.

According to the New York Post, the nurse made it very clear as a condition of hire that she would never assist in an abortion.  It is unclear as to why this nurse would choose to work in a hospital that performed abortions, and it is unclear as to why the hospital would hire a nurse who admitted she would not assist in a procedure  that the OR regularly does.  Something just does not add up to me.

I have never come across a nurse manager who has forced a sobbing nurse  to assist in a procedure she was morally opposed to .  It makes me wonder how the nurse in question protested against her assignment.  Did she initially complain, than give in, and then feel victimized after the fact?  I will be curious to hear the other side of this story.

As in most cases like these, a lot of drama could have been avoided by simple communication and planning.  The whole situation is tragic and sad.  I hope it is not being exploited by either side to promote an agenda.  That will prove to be no good.

RR