NurseWeek

Hospital throws out striking nurse who visited patient

By Cathryn Domrose
July 15, 2000


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Palo Alto. A striking nurse who crossed picket lines to visit a cancer patient at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford was ordered to leave by a supervisor and escorted out by security guards last month.

The hospital’s chief executive officer later apologized to the patient and said the hospital would review future nurse-patient visits during the strike, hospital spokesman Ben Drew said. Nurses have been on strike at Packard and Stanford Hospital since June 7.

The nurse, Theresa Carey, RN, said 20-year-old Kris McCormack had asked her to visit him at the hospital after surgery on his lungs. McCormack and Carey had developed a friendship that began about a year ago when McCormack was at Packard for lymphoma treatments.

Carey did not talk to hospital administrators before visiting McCormack because she thought she could enter the hospital as a visitor, she said.

On June 24, she signed in, received a pass and went to McCormack’s room, she said. After about 15 minutes, a supervisor called her into the hall and told her to leave because she was a striking nurse, Carey said.

When Carey explained that the patient had asked her to visit him, the supervisor said she had to visit McCormack outside the hospital, Carey said. After she said good-bye to McCormack, who was upset and pleaded with her not to go, the supervisor was waiting outside with security guards, Carey said.

Drew confirmed that Carey had been escorted from the hospital. "It was at the beginning of the strike and tensions were heightened at that time," he said.

Later, Carey said, she spoke to hospital CEO Chris Dawes, who apologized to McCormack and said he would arrange a visitation plan for Carey. But McCormack was discharged from the hospital soon after the incident.

Other nurses since have been allowed to visit patients on a case-by-case basis, Drew said.