Board inaction keeps problem nurses on job

By Peter Korn

The Portland Tribune, Mar 7, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

One of the most serious charges leveled at the Oregon State Board of Nursing concerns how it deals with nurses who commit crimes.

When a nurse steals money or jewelry from an elderly patient in a nursing home, a crime has occurred. When a nurse or aide steals drugs from a patient or a facility dispensary, a crime has occurred.

But according to a number of people in law enforcement, the Board of Nursing typically does not report nurses who commit crimes to criminal justice authorities. And that failure to report, in some cases, may be a crime itself.

Judy McFarlane, a Portland police officer who investigates crimes reported at nursing facilities, said drug theft by nurses at facilities is widespread.

“There have been so many nurses accused of stealing Vicodin (a painkiller) that it is hard to keep them all straight,” she said.

Most often, McFarlane said, the thefts occur at care facilities catering to the elderly, where nurse oversight is more lax than in hospitals, and where the majority of work is done by certified nursing assistants rather than professional nurses.

Ellyn Sternfield, director of the Oregon Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Unit, said she would like to be able to prosecute nurses who steal from or abuse elderly patients, and she thinks the nursing board is required to alert her to those cases under the state elder abuse law. But, she said, it doesn’t.

Elder abuse statutes are modeled after laws for reporting child abuse. They require certain public and private officials who become aware of elder abuse Ñ defined as physical injury, neglect, abandonment or infliction of pain Ñ to immediately report their suspicions to either the Oregon Department of Human Services or criminal authorities, including the Department of Justice.

The statutes define mandatory reporters as all nurses and nursing aides, along with attorneys, police officers, social workers and many others.

Seven of the nine members of the Oregon State Board of Nursing are nurses. In Sternfield’s opinion, that means when the board considers a case of a nurse or aide who has stolen drugs intended for an elderly patient, or neglected or mistreated an elderly person, the seven nurse board members must report the nurse for investigation.

But Sternfield told the Portland Tribune she has had only one case referred to her by the nursing board in eight years.

McFarlane said she has never been given any potential criminal case Ñ elder abuse or otherwise Ñ to investigate by the Board of Nursing. Cindy Hannum, the Department of Human Services administrator whose office oversees nursing facilities in the state, provided statistics that showed the nursing board failed to refer any cases to her office for investigation last year, and only two the year before.

“I don’t know why they don’t report more,” Hannum said. “I have said (to board officials): ‘You need to report more.’ ”

Board: We do report cases

Board officials say they have a staff member report elder abuse cases to the Department of Human Services.

“I don’t see it as my role as a nurse to report every case we have,” said Board of Nursing President Saundra Theis. “My thought and my assurance is that’s already being done.”

But the Portland Tribune’s investigation revealed many cases of possible crimes by nurses that nursing board officials knew about and criminal authorities and other state agencies knew nothing about.

Portland police officer McFarlane disagrees that the board is doing everything it can.

She said she set up a meeting a few years ago with officials at the Board of Nursing to discuss the board’s refusal to refer cases to police, but left feeling it wasn’t interested in what she had to say.

“I don’t get a lot of cooperation from the state Board of Nursing,” McFarlane said. “It’s a posturing, a circling of wagons.”

No reports, no charges

If hospital and nursing home administrators reported crimes directly to police, charges might be brought. But that’s rarely the case, said Jerry Vaculin, administrator of Seaview Health Care and Rehab Center in Eureka, Calif. Vaculin, who served as a nursing home administrator for years in Oregon, said that most facility administrators report nurses who steal drugs to the board, but not to police.

“I think there’s this idea out there: How big of a crime is it? I see a lot of that. ‘Oh, we don’t want to ruin their (nurses’) lives,’ ” he said.

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