Reference no: EM133228473

Question: You are a new graduate staff nurse in a home health agency. One of your clients is a 23-year-old man with acute schizophrenia who was just released from the local county, acute care, behavioral health-care facility, following a 72-hour hold. He has no insurance. His family no longer has contact with him, and he is unable to hold a permanent job. He is noncompliant in taking his prescription drugs for schizophrenia. He is homeless and has been sleeping and eating intermittently at the local homeless shelter; however, he was recently asked not to return because he is increasingly agitated and, at times, violent. He calls you today and asks you "to help him with the voices in his head." You approach the senior registered nurse (RN) case manager in the facility for help in identifying options for this individual to get the behavioral health-care services that he needs. She suggests that you tell the patient to go to Maxwell's Mini Mart, a local convenience store, at 3 PM today and wait by the counter. Then she tells you that you should contact the police at 2:55 PM and tell them that Maxwell's Mini Mart is being robbed by your patient so that he will be arrested. She states, "I do with all of my uninsured mental health patients, since the state Medicaid program offers only limited mental health services and the "patients really have a chance of getting better." She ends the conversation by saying, "I know you are a new nurse and don't understand how the real world works, but the reality is that this is the only way I can advocate for patients like this, and you need to do the same for your patients." a. Will you follow the advice of the senior RN case manager? b. If not, how else can you advocate for this patient?