Nurses around the country are rallying to support RaDonda Vaught, who was convicted of felony criminal charges in March for giving her patient a fatal dose of vecuronium. This case has captured national attention and put a spotlight on the role nurses play in medical errors.
Prosecutors argued that Vaught made repeated errors that warranted criminal punishment. But the defense team said her mistake was a simple one that was exacerbated by systemic problems at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
What Happened?
Nurse RaDonda has become the focus of a global movement for nurses. Her conviction on two felonies in a medication error that killed a patient has stirred fear among health care workers and raised questions about criminalizing medical errors.
The case of former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse RaDonda Vaught, who was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult after injecting a patient with vecuronium instead of Versed, has brought attention to the dangers of ignoring safeguards in hospital settings.
After the verdict, Vaught was granted a judicial diversion, meaning she will not go to prison, and her conviction will be expunged if she completes three years probation. Nurses who have rallied against her prosecution, or who have shared her story online, have urged the government to take a more proactive approach to protecting health care workers from the criminalization of honest mistakes. They said the risk of prison sentences has made nurses reluctant to report mistakes or admit they have done so.
The Verdict
Medical errors occur all the time, and nurses and doctors are human. But the decision to prosecute nurse RaDonda for a fatal error is unjust and dangerous.
In late 2017, nurse RaDonda Vaught accidentally injected Charlene Murphey, a 75-year-old patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, with the wrong medication. Instead of the prescribed sedative Versed, she gave Murphey vecuronium, a powerful paralytic drug.
It is an incredibly tragic story that has caused tremendous concern among nursing groups, healthcare organizations and patients around the country. A jury convicted nurse RaDonda of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult on March 25.
The Sentencing
The sentencing of nurse RaDonda Vaught for her role in the death of a patient captured national attention and launched an emotional rallying cry among nurses across the country. Hundreds of purple-clad protesters gathered outside the courthouse, many of them healthcare professionals.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Tennessee Nurses Association, in a joint statement after Vaught’s trial, said the sentencing of an individual for the non-intentional acts of healthcare professionals is a dangerous precedent that would deter nurses from disclosing errors to their peers and could have a negative impact on patient care. Instead, organizations, professional boards and systems should focus on examining errors, establishing system improvements and taking corrective action to reduce the chances of mistakes occurring in the future.
Vaught’s conviction and sentence, meted out for the kind of error that routinely occurs in health care institutions across the country, is a true travesty of justice. In response to the judge’s leniency, AWHONN is grateful.
The Consequences
Nurses and nursing organizations have slammed the conviction, warning that it will have lasting negative consequences for patient safety and the profession. They say it will demoralize and deplete the ranks of nurses already stretched thin by the pandemic and other stresses.
Vaught was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult for her role in the death of a 75-year-old patient. She mistakenly injected Charlene Murphey with vecuronium, a drug that stops breathing and can be used to deprive patients of oxygen.
The wrongful death case made headlines across the country, sparking an outcry from nurses and healthcare organizations who said the prosecution set a dangerous precedent for a profession that’s already struggling to recruit new nurses.
Critics argued that the prosecution was a smokescreen that distracted from her employer’s failure to implement patient safeguards. And they argued that the outcome could undermine a critical safety reform that requires hospital systems to be accountable for their patient safety infrastructures and ensures nurses are trained to spot and report errors.