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HelioMetrics Comment: I found the part that we bolded very interesting and very true. It is shocking and sad the number of hospitals and care facilities that simply fire the caregiver for some other reason, like failing to to their job properly, so that they don’t have to report drug diversion to authorities. Once a hospital starts reporting drug diversion, other diverters that work there (yes, all hospitals have diverters) may think twice before diverting, may lessen the amount diverted or just simply leave so they don’t get caught. If enough healthcare facilities start doing the right thing by installing a true drug diversion monitoring system and reporting findings to law enforcement, these caregivers will not have anyplace to go work and the system might be able to start cleaning itself up.
Original Story Below:
SULLIVAN COUNTY, TN (WJHL) – When a nurse is fired for stealing drugs, not all hospitals in our area alert police and the Tennessee Board of Nursing, according to Sullivan County Deputy District Attorney General Gene Perrin.
“That is a big part of this problem is the reluctance of medical employers to do the right thing,” Perrin said. “It has to be reported. To ignore the problem simply in my opinion accelerates or enables the continuation of the problem.”
Perrin declined to identify the hospitals in question. We’ve already discovered it can take a long time for the nursing board to suspend or revoke a license, allowing some drug-addicted nurses to find new jobs while they’re under investigation, but Perrin says neither the board nor police can take appropriate action if they’re not notified.
Perrin says the Sullivan County District Attorney’s Office is investigating an area nurse right now for drug diversion.
“There was a nurse that worked for a local hospital, she was caught diverting and no report was made with the state, no report was made to law enforcement,” Perrin said. “She was dismissed from her employment. Years later she was caught diverting at another hospital in this region. That hospital reported her. She has admitted that she diverted every day that she worked at every hospital that she was employed at and that when she would be caught diverting and fired, she would simply go on and seek and gain new medical employment. There were no red flags, because those hospitals just chose just to let her go and to have someone else deal with it.”
After we asked, the region’s two largest health systems both reaffirmed their commitments to reporting drug diversion cases to police and the state.
“Wellmont Health System is committed to the well-being of its co-workers and offers programs to assist anyone who might become dependent on drugs and want to address his or her condition,” Wellmont Health System said in a statement. “However, our organization does not tolerate the diversion of hospital medications for a co-worker’s or physician’s personal use. Our policy is to work collaboratively with civil and criminal authorities locally and with the state should a co-worker engage in improper drug activity. We take this issue seriously and are focused on maintaining a secure environment in which medications are used only for their intended purpose.”
Just weeks ago, Franklin Woods Community Hospital CEO Lindy White told us Mountain States Health Alliance continues to do more to fight the growing problem of drug diversion. At MSHA’s Washington County hospitals, White said the health system has created a new committee to improve prevention, catching drug diversion and reporting it.
“We take drug diversion very seriously,” White said. “We want to protect the safety and quality inside our facilities for our patients. We’re constantly looking at additional gaps and measures we can put in place to ensure that we have the most minimal risk of diversion inside our facilities for the safety of our patients.”
Perrin says one of the hospitals in Sullivan County does an especially good job of reporting drug diversion. He declined to name that hospital as well, but says the hospital’s zero tolerance approach has resulted in the prosecution of at least 10 former employees.
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