Yesterday’s post discussed the LA Times article revealing that dozens of nurses in California with criminal convictions have valid licenses to practice in the state. One expert said they were “blown away” by the information, meaning she was surprised, I guess.
Turns out my suggestion that similar stories could be waiting in other states is all too true. A quick search this morning revealed there was a similar study in Texas earlier this year with even worse results.
News 8 compared names and dates of births of every currently licensed nurse against the Texas Department of Public Safety criminal database.
The result revealed that thousands of Texas nurses have arrest records. In fact, one in 20 of them have records.
More than half of those work in hospitals and nursing homes. Some have charges as serious as arson, attempted murder and deadly conduct.
But what seemed even more remarkable was that the Texas Board of Nursing didn’t know about many of the arrests since its own background checks won’t be complete until 2012, according to the Board’s Director of Enforcement Tony Diggs.
So why do we care about this? Well, first there is the concern that some of the people in hospitals and other facilities may be people we wouldn’t want to entrust our lives to if we happen to end up there.
But it also relates to the debate about assisted suicide, euthanasia and other forms of medical killing. Advocates argue that strict safeguards will prevent any abuse, slide or spread of medical killing beyond what is allowed in the law.
The news in California and Texas shows us that the public’s faith in meaningful oversight of the medical profession is misplaced. And it’s not just these states – Oregon had its own scandal regarding its statewide nursing review board.
That’s three states out of fifty. I hope people will understand my inability to be surprised if stories like these pop up in more states. –Stephen Drake