California Nurses Statement On The Board Of Registered Nursing

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 17 Jul 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The California Nurses Association concurred on the need for improved enforcement to protect patients affected by the handful of nurses alleged to have found to have committed egregious misconduct that put patients in jeopardy.

But, CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro emphasized, "much of the responsibility for the controversy now swirling around the Board of Registered Nursing lies directly at the feet of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who has systematically underfunded the board, tried to erode its authority, and has failed to respond to a known problem for months."

"First, it's important for California families to be reassured. There are 350,000 actively licensed registered nurses in this state who provide extraordinary care, mostly under trying and difficult conditions," said DeMoro. "These reports have highlighted a tiny handful of nurses who are the extremely rare exception, who if guilty, should be disciplined, with due process, in as expedited a manner as possible."

However, DeMoro called Gov. Schwarzenegger's decision today to fire BRN members he himself appointed, "basically showboating, which has long been this governor's trademark, giving the appearance of action he has long ignored."

Schwarzenegger is "largely culpable for an atmosphere of antipathy to regulatory oversight and public protection evident throughout California government, which leads to lax enforcement and also gives a wink and a nod to employers," said DeMoro.

She noted, for example, the report this morning of a hospital in Vallejo, a part of one of California's biggest hospital chains Sutter Health, which is exposing patients and nurses to swine flu by failing to provide nurses who care for swine flu patients with proper safety equipment.

Gov. Schwarzenegger, said DeMoro, "personifies the anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-public protection rhetoric that is so pervasive among some politicians. His administration has been lax in numerous areas of public oversight and protection, and proper funding and enforcement to assure public and worker safety."

"Firing a handful of his own appointees now will not change that record, especially as he continues to target more state workers for furloughs and layoffs that will further impair the ability of our vital state agencies to assure public safety."

"The problem of slow enforcement of discipline cases by the BRN has been known for months. Yet neither the governor nor his Department of Consumer Affairs, which have authority over the BRN, have requested additional funding for investigatory staff to hasten the review and enforcement process. And even now the governor is engaged in a confrontation with state workers, putting employees on work furloughs which will even further slow the ability to assure needed action."

Further, she noted, Gov. Schwarzenegger has "repeatedly sought to further impede the work of the BRN itself by proposing first in 2005, and now again, to combine it with a licensing board that oversees licensed vocational nurses, which would limit on the ability of the board and its staff to complete the disciplinary review process."

It is instructive, DeMoro added, that the governor's "most high profile action involving nurses to date was his decision in 2004 to target the ability of registered nurses to properly care for patients by issuing an emergency regulation to suspend portions of the state law requiring minimum safe levels of nurse staffing."

That decision, later found by the courts to be illegal, and subjected to more than 100 protests by RNs, "illustrates the failed record of this governor on the most basic issue of public oversight and workplace safety."

Source
California Nurses Association