There’s a big story in Oregon, but you wouldn’t know it from the amount of coverage it is getting.
Due largely to a series of investigative reports by the Portland Tribune’s Peter Korn, the state initiated an investigation into the practices of the Oregon State Board of Nursing. Last week, the report was released and it was as bad as anyone could have imagined, as Korn’s August 31st story reveals:
Among the most serious allegations in the stories were that the board routinely hid the actions of nurses who had committed crimes from criminal justice authorities.
Also, the stories highlighted abuses in the board’s monitoring program, which allows nurses with drug and alcohol addictions to continue working while they receive treatment.
In some cases, nurses in the monitoring program were allowed to continue in their jobs even after multiple instances of stealing medications from patients.
The state report issued Wednesday supported the Tribune’s stories and found even more problems. According to the report, even cases of alleged sex abuse and attempted rape that came before the nursing board were not referred to criminal
authorities.And, the report found, the nurse monitoring program “does not protect the public as effectively as it protects a participant’s license to practice.”
That last line from Korn’s story is an exact quote from the report itself.
That’s not all. One of the cases that the Board let slide was one in which two nurses were found to have “assisted” a patient in committing suicide. I put the “assisted” part in quotes because Wendy Melcher’s daughter doesn’t believe that there ever was a request on the part of Melcher to die and has suggested some less-than-noble motivations on the part of at least one of the nurses. Since this all happened in 2005, the delays will make this a difficult case to prosecute, according to authorities.
Technically, what these nurses admit to is a serious crime. Melcher never made any application for lethal medication to a physician. The nurses in question didn’t report Melcher’s alleged request to hospice. It is illegal for them to administer drugs to end a life – even under the assisted suicide law. The Board never reported them to the police, but “disciplined” them. One nurse had her license suspended for 30 days and the other was placed on probation for two years.
If you check out the links you’ll find that they all point you to stories by Peter Korn at the Portland Tribune. That’s no coincidence. Coverage of the investigation and the report regarding the Oregon State Board of Nursing has been scant in Oregon.
That’s really odd. This report was as damning as any report I’ve ever read. As mentioned above, one of the cases under review involves the issue of assisted suicide, which is touted by euthanasia advocates as a system that has strict controls, oversights, and eliminates unregulated practices through the system of safeguards that is widely touted. Given that, we can understand why Compassion and Choices isn’t featuring the news on its website. It’s not exactly the kind of thing they would want to publicize in their showcase state.
But what about the other journalists in Oregon? This is a huge story. It’s important in terms of its impact on public health and safety. It’s also the kind of story that generates interest – scandal sells, doesn’t it? So why are Peter Korn and the Portland Tribune virtually the only ones reporting on this? Is it because they’d have to give credit to Korn and the Trib for breaking this story? It’s hard to understand. This was so bad that the Director of the State Board of Nursing resigned. Her interim appointment fired the person in the number 2 position. The rest of the board members remain, though.
This is something we should all pay attention to. As the American Medical Association (AMA)announced this summer, they’d like to see review boards to replace legal authorities in investigating and disciplining medical professionals whose conduct is called into question, at least in declared disaster areas. In a joint press release from the AMA and the American Nurses Association (ANA) on July 17th regarding the “criminalizing of medical decisions,” they said:
“During any disaster, health care providers — doctors, nurses and others — must work together to make the best decisions that they can given available resources.
“Judgments regarding these decisions and subsequent actions would be more properly considered by the respective licensing boards.”
Would that be licensing boards like the one in Oregon? Or the licensing boards in California that found no fault with an attending physician who handed the care of a live patient to a transplant surgeon – and watched while the surgeon attempted to kill the patient quickly enough to harvest his organs? Or the review board who found no fault with the nurse who administered the lethal medications under the transplant surgeon’s direction?
I can see why that would make medical professionals sleep easier at night. I can’t see how that helps the rest of us, especially when we all have to wonder if the medical review boards in our own states are any better than the Board of Nursing in Oregon. –Stephen Drake