Schwarzenegger Replaces Most of State Nursing Board. Timing is during summer public health debate.

[midnight]

The shake-up came a day after the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica published an investigation finding that it takes the board, which oversees 350,000 licensees, an average of three years and five months to investigate and close complaints against nurses.

During that time, nurses accused of wrongdoing are free to practice – often with spotless records – and move from hospital to hospital. Potential employers are unaware of the risks, and patients have been harmed as a result.

Reporters found nurses who continued to work unrestricted for years despite documented histories of incompetence, violence, criminal convictions and drug theft or abuse. In dozens of cases, nurses maintained clean records in California even though they had been suspended or fired by employers, disciplined by another California licensing board or restricted from practice by other states.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that it takes years to investigate such outrageous allegations of misconduct against licensed health professionals whom the public rely on for their health and well-being," Schwarzenegger said in a written statement.

Board member Andrea Guillen Dutton, in a resignation letter Sunday, said she was leaving in frustration. "Certain ‘bad actors' are jeopardizing the reputation of the entire nursing profession," she wrote. "This deeply saddens me."


I'm thinking the "bad actors'" comment is in reference to schwarzenegger. This is very interesting move by the Gov. who has been called to task by the nurses for his handling of his patient to staff ratios other bad actions on his part.... I'm not sure if this was ever posted last summer, but curious how the stops that were taken out to cause chaos this last summer while the public option was being given a red light, and single payer was never an option..... If this problem is to be addressed the gov. will need to do his job and fix the patient staff ratio problem. Otherwise his fake outrage over abuse is just fake outrage.







by Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica - July 13, 2009 9:55 pm EDT

[Cleita]

1. Let's see the CNA, an association of nurses in California, has been leading

the battle for universal health care in California as well as nationwide, a bill that has been vetoed by Arnold twice now. I guess he's following in Bush's footsteps of eliminating the opposition any way you can. Interesting that he is only targeting nurses instead of overhauling licensing procedures at large.

[ensho]

2. Arnold hates the nurses

nurses are tough, they will fight back.

Arnold has been so bad for Calif. its a shame.

[Cleita]

3. That's right.

He had a big fight with them when he tried to bust up their union.

[Igel]

4. Let's see. . .

A board responsible for policing the ranks of those under its jurisdiction are nearly 3 1/2 behind in investigating claims of wrongdoing and incompetence.

During the 3 1/2 years (3 yrs 5 months, if you insist) those nurses--possibly incompetent--are allowed to work. In other words, they're immunized.

The only thing worse than allowing the board to be incompetent is this way is, apparently, to do something about it.

Of course, the firing of 1/2 of the board, with another resigning (out of protest, I would assume) was done immediately after the LA Times ran the story accusing the board of such dire, life-threatening incompetence or corruption. So the charges aren't original with Schwarzenegger.

Guillen Dutton continued (or previously said): "Certain 'bad actors' are jeopardizing the reputation of the entire nursing profession," she wrote. "This deeply saddens me." "I have fought to defend the integrity of patient care throughout the state by holding the negligent accountable," she wrote. "However, I have grown increasingly frustrated by the board's lack of ability to achieve its stated objectives in a timely and efficient manner."

Who she has in mind is a good question. The LAT tries to suggest that it's their director, who would actually be in charge of doing the investigations. The director, of course, blames nameless others in the state bureaucracy.

Follow-up story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nurses11-2009oct11,0,2876629.story . The board has gotten it's part of the bureaucracy moving, as has the state attorney's office (headed by Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr--who I don't recall being all that fascist a Republican :crazy: ).

Strikes me as a good thing, overall. But hey, let's make not investigating nurses charged with incompetence, on-the-job drug use, etc., etc., a plank in the progressive platform. We can stipulate that all medical malpractice suits take at least 4 years, as well. That'll go over well.