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Who has authority to inject other than ourselves?

bennycrock

Member
Messages
16
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi, bit of I strange one and a question I thought I knew the answer to.

The other day my wife was at work and couldn't inject, she went off the meter and was in a right state. She tried her stomachs numerous amounts of times but with no luck. She rang her diabetic nurse who said "is there anyone you trust to do it for you" my wife works in a pharmacy so asked the pharmacist if he could inject her in the arm. She dialled up the units and he then injected her arm (he does flu jabs all the time) however although he is a trained first aider/ trained pharmacist and gives flu shots, her manager has now taken it upon herself to create havoc stating that he shouldn't have done this and got numerous amounts of managers and area managers involved. If sky wife was not given her insulin as you well know she would have ended up in a&e or had a really bad few day at home with ketones or what not. Being T1 myself I assumed this is absolutely fine. Not only over the years have I had my family and friends inject my arm but my manager (me and the wife technically work for the same company just different managers) asked if one day she could administer my injection.

A bit of help would be very much appreciated

Thanks in advance
 
It may be because of prescribing that they've taken it higher but it is absolutely ridiculous and has been taken out of all proportion by the sounds of it.
I'm a nurse and my nursing colleagues and friends have given me my medication when I have been unable to.
They are probably concerned regarding health and safety and risk management.
I would assume they need to argue that they acted in your wife's best interests and prevented her from being seriously ill. Without the pharmacists actions it may have been a very different story.
It sounds like an **** of a manager who has no experience or idea and just wants to get one up on everyone or feels threatened by their work or success in other areas.
Best of luck to you and your wife in getting it resolved xxx
 
Anyone we give consent to has authority to inject us.

It could be that there are rules at work forbidding your manager from injecting you. But it's a pretty unusual situation, so I would be amazed if there were a specific rule that covered it. And, in the circumstances it sounds like there would be very good arguments for bending any such rule.

Can I ask what was the issue causing problems with the injections? Only because someone might have a suggestion to stop that happening again and make it easier for your wife to inject herself.
 
Thank you both for your kind words and advise. My wife suffers from a slight needle phobia. By that I mean she doesn't like putting extra pressure on the pen to pierce the skin. I have to do her night time insulin every night in her leg because she can't bare to look/do them herself which obviously is fine with me. Trouble is by her placing the needle close to her skin and allowing it to only penetrate less then 1mm and then removing the needle and repeating she's obviously causing extra harm to her injection sites and blunting the needle. It's a catch 22 situation
 
Hi. Can I just check some background? If you have high blood sugar and need to have some rapid insulin it normally wouldn't matter if the injection wasn't given for many hours i.e. missed. DKA would normally only occur with high blood sugar and ketones and the ketones wouldn't normally be high unless you are in serious fat burn etc. I assume the meter was reading Hi. I'm not saying it wasn't urgent but I'm wondering what caused the urgency?
 
In this day and age it's difficult to get a paracetamol from your employer.

I imagine the basic issue is one of corporate liability. There's probably insurance in place to cover giving flu jabs to joe public but not to work colleagues?
 
Hi there. Yes the metre reading read high so over 30 mmol She has only been diagnosed since March and has recently in April been diagnosed with hyperactivethyroidism. Due to a missed breakfast dose (couldn't do it) and a very late lunch dose (again couldn't do it) she went on a downward spiral and obviously not knowing how to manage it. I'm not saying she went into DKA but I bet she wasn't far off. More to the point regardless if she was or wasn't in DKA none of us like being that high and actions needed to be taken especially as she was at work and also at some point needed to drive home. But thank you for reading
 
Diabetes and needle phobia is a cruel combination. I have no experience of needle phobia, so no words of wisdom.

Has Mrs @bennycrock considered making enquiries about a pump? One cannula insertion every three days, that you could help with, might be better than 5 injections everyday if the injections are causing such problems for her.
 
catapillar said:
Anyone we give consent to has authority to inject us.
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Yes that's the view I would take too, but it looks like the pharmacist has breached company rules......hence the internal enquiry.
 
@catapilar I don't have any issues with them either although I can never watch when I have blood taken. Yes she would but I believe our diabetic nurse said she wouldn't be able to go on one just yet because of the length of diagnosis time (only 5 weeks ish)
 
@noblehead seems that way yes although no policy has been mentioned and no risk assessment put in place since diagnosis. Not 100% that's a requirement for diabetes though :/
 
bennycrock said:
@noblehead seems that way yes although no policy has been mentioned and no risk assessment put in place since diagnosis. Not 100% that's a requirement for diabetes though :/
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Unable to say what the company policy is, but I wish your wife and the pharmacist well and hope this matter blows over without any action taken. Good luck.
 
bennycrock said:
@noblehead seems that way yes although no policy has been mentioned and no risk assessment put in place since diagnosis. Not 100% that's a requirement for diabetes though :/
Click to expand...

It could be worthwhile checking out if there is a nominated First Aider in that location. If there is, that might be a decent stance to take, in terms of supporting your wife. Perhaps your mutual employer would be happier if someone at the location had specific training in giving insulin injections. If that were helpful, then I would think your wife's diabetes support team might be able to help out.

There may be precedents around nut allergies and epi pens in the workplace that could be worth doing som Google research on.
 
@AndBreathe thanks for your reply. Yes probably a good start I will look into it. As for the first aider, the pharmacist is the first aider of that location but a course on administering insulin might be a good idea
 
Sounds more like company policy than anything, would have been interesting if it was a glucagon injection though, would they have been in such a fuss then!?

Couple of things about the injections though. A while back someone posted on here about a device that you put on your skin and then injected into that instead. No idea if it was any good but might be something to look into.

Also the normal treatment for diabetes used to be twice daily injections of act rapid and insulatard it meant fairly strict meal / snack times and pretty much 0 flexibility but it might be something to talk to your dsn about if your wife can't do injections at all....
 
bennycrock said:
@AndBreathe thanks for your reply. Yes probably a good start I will look into it. As for the first aider, the pharmacist is the first aider of that location but a course on administering insulin might be a good idea
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My thinking is they may just want to ensure he is competent to inject her and that she has given her permission. It could also be a thought, if you need anything else, that your wife gives written permission for her injections, each time, if necessary, so that consent is clear and in writing. The pharmacist could be indemnified from any risk within that consent, if necessary. The location could retain a stock of blank forms for completions, as required? Clearly, other arrangements could be appropriate if your wife was very hypo and credibly unable to sign, but of course, that would not insulin being injected!!

I don't know if any consent with indemnity document templates exists anywhere, but I would been certain there must be a way around this.
 
AndBreathe said:
I don't know if any consent with indemnity document templates exists anywhere.
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I wouldn't have thought so because, in England & Wales, any contract purporting to exclude liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence won't be effective on that point (Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 ?) and an indemnity from the injectee to the injector to indemnify them for any liability arising from giving the injection would be invalid when it came to indemnifying for negligently caused personal injury & I can't think of any other liability that would realistically arise.
 
In which case, it may be this potential liability on company premises the Company are concerned about. Although a pharmacist with additional, focused instruction could be considered a minimal risk.

Actually, I don't know what "giving" instruction they routinely receive. That last bit is just a meandering thought on my part.
 
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