They can reveal how many overworked and under-trained nurses kill and injure thousands of patients every year because hospitals sacrifice safety for not tracking their own medical errors. Statistics showed that only 14 States track these errors and hospitals in most States were not required to offer information on accidental deaths or injuries, not even to the families of the victims. Public custom databases, such as the Food and Drug Administration or FDA and the Health Care Financing Administration, tracked reports of a range of these medical errors and neglect from defibrillators to pacemakers, and from sutures to skin grafts. These incidents included thousands of patients accidentally overdosed because nurses typed the wrong dosage; did not hear the warning alarm on patients on life-saving machinery; patients' heads trapped in bed rails or strangled by post-surgical restraints (Berens).
The Chicago-based National Council of State Boards of Nursing computerizes disciplinary actions against erring nurses in all States and U.S. territories (Berens 2001). But this private, non-profit group at first refused to share its information with the public. But with prodding by Tribune attorneys, an Illinois licensing agency showed its database, which contained the nurses' names and dates of violations. These violations ranged from drug trafficking and money laundering to welfare fraud, theft and burglary. The trends in approaching these violations have included the withholding of embarrassing details from public files if the offending nurses did not contest punishment; investigators never pulling a medical file or interviewing injured or affected patients; and erring nurses continuing to practice before any disciplinary action was taken against them. They were simply allowed to move to other...
The media sounded the alarm about hospital management and patient care. The governor of Illinois met with a big group of health care professionals to elicit their recommendations for legislative changes and new licensing and disciplinary strategies for greater protection of the public. And many big nursing organizations took serious notice of the findings and rallied for the recognition of this nursing crisis, which the public still has to make (Berens).
A hospital nurse who is caught stealing drugs, intended for cancer patients or patients of any kind of illness, for her own use should be immediately dismissed and then prosecuted. If she has become a drug abuser, she should also be committed to rehabilitation. But the proper authorities should take note of the length of time she has been stealing and the probable victims of her theft. This information should be carefully and immediately noted and work on and the victims appropriately treated, if injured, and the family informed and compensated, if the patient died as a consequence. But the information should not be withheld as private or confidential by the hospital.
Bibliography
Associated Press (2006). Former nurse convicted of drug theft. 1 page. Boston.com:the New
York Times Company
Berens, M.J. (2001). Medical errors. 3 pages. The IRE Journal: Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.
Cuomo, a.M. (2001). Nurse admits to narcotic theft at Long Island Hospital. 2 pages. Office fo the New York State Attorney-General: New York State
Hart, S. (2006). Nurse admits stealing powerful drugs. 2 pages. Herald on Sunday:
NZHerald.co.nz
Miletic, D. (2005). Nurse admits drug theft. 3 pages. Fairfax Digital: theage.com.au
