Hello Mary Lu

Within a week of my reading the "Dr Doctor Memo," Tania Chatila, a Staff Writer at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune  wrote her own version of the discovery "Forgery of CPR Cards Leads to Hospital Job Losses"  in the August 30th, 2008 edition. I commend Tania for having the fortitude to write the articles about the situation, and hope she continues to dig deeply into these types of healthcare problems in the local area. I can honestly say from my personal experience this is only the "tip" of the iceberg.

From my sources I learned that one or two of the local hospital employees, over at Queen of the Valley Hospital had a little side business going on– that of printing up phony CPR cards and selling them to the staff. 

Frankly knowing some of the staff at Queen’ it does not surprise me. The hospital has been ripe with staff issues for several years. Many of the good physicians and clinical staff won’t even practice there. The root cause of the problem is that we are so over run with foreign born staff who are more concerned with the money they are making vs. the quality of patient care they have chased off good people. These healthcare workers feel they don’t have time to attend a 4.5 hour CPR recertification class because they are too busy working their "other jobs," or complain why the hospitals don’t pay them attending their recertification CPR classes. Over the years I have seen an ethically challenged mentality permeate many local area healthcare professionals into believing they feel they will never get caught. Well obviously they did and their time’s up– and not a minute too soon!

What really concerns me as a former hospital administrator is that this situation is just the tip of the iceberg. With the local nursing shortage I would estimate that about 50% of the nurses at Queen’ work at other hospitals. No doubt their other employers are going to learn about this situation, and it is going to create a house of cards, as the information is vetted amongst the other facilities. It also leads me to ask… If this one hospital had a staff member printing up phony CPR cards, why wouldn’t others (in other facilities,) be trying it too? I also would like to know if the Hospital Association of Southern California  doing about this situation? Have you advised the rest of your member hospitals to carefully check out the certifications of your staff members? Or are we just sweeping this one little situation under the rug?

The reality check is: This entire phony CPR scam effects impacts each and every health care facility. Why? It is a matter of trust. When patients and their family’s entrust us with their health and safety, the public holds us to a higher standard. When a group of healthcare workers breach that trust by faking up their certifications and training, it puts both the public and the hospitals who employ these people at risk.  It also leads me to seriously wonder about validity of all of the certifications these so-called healthcare workers carry– and frankly it scares me to think I may potentially be placed in a situation where I need to trust them myself or one of my family or friends.

Unfortunately this entire situation is proof that many local healthcare workers lack honesty and ethics. The public is supposed to be able to "trust" a nurse or other clinical-type who is part of a patients health-care team. Trust involves ethics and honesty. If a nurse is dishonest in obtaining training or supposed training it rightly leads the public to ask, "What else are they willing to do to protect themselves and their jobs, vs. doing the right thing?"

It has come to my attention that other area hospitals have had a variety of serious incidents similar or even worse, like the drunk RT passing out in middle of a Code, or the RNs in a unit who forget to give a patient their needed medications for several days despite the fact it is on the medication record, or the physician who refuses to return calls to the units, pharmacy or the labs to get important information– none of which never has ever been reported or created a ripple across a local newspaper.  It just gets swept under a rug.

When will this ever end and these facilities ever get their act cleaned up? When will the California State Board of Nursing take a stand on nurses faking up their records? Honestly? I’m not holding my breath.

Tags: Citrus Valley Health Partners, Queen of the Valley Hospital, Inter-Community Hospital, Foothill Presbyterian Hospital, Citrus Valley Hospice, Citrus Valley Home Health, Phony CPR cards