Double Standard in Dealing with Incompetence

I admit I wasn’t a fly on the wall in the labor and delivery suite of Kaiser Permanente Hospital-Fresno, where a series of negligent decisions and actions by a perinatologist there were witnessed and reported by not just one, but several, nurses and other staff.

Nor was I a fly on the wall in the administrative offices of Kaiser-Fresno where, it seems, those in charge decided not to take immediate action against the doctor, even in the face of repeated complaints going back at least as far as 2004.

True, I am not privy to all the details. I do know, though, that two infants died. I know that despite Kaiser-Fresno’s mid-2005 mandate that the doctor be supervised by another physician or advanced practice nurse, and a 2007 requirement that he be accompanied on rounds by a high risk nurse specialist, he did not comply. I know Kaiser-Fresno failed to actively enforce the restrictions placed upon him by hospital administration, even as nursing staff continued to report many incidents of non-compliance.

A spate of complaints to a national health agency by nurses, patients and medical staff resulted in the agency’s investigation of the issue, beginning in October 2007. In a recently released report, the agency cited both the hospital and the doctor for gross negligence resulting in death. As a result, a hospital administrator has resigned and the California medical board is seeking the revocation of the doctor’s medical license.

Can any of you imagine that a hospital administration, presented with repeated evidence of a nurse’s negligence or blatant endangerment resulting in the death of one or more patients, would allow that nurse to continue working for several more years, collecting even more perfomance complaints along the way? I can’t. I feel certain that the nurse would’ve been shown the door early on, and rightly so. What’s up with that? Why the double standard? Do hospitals fear taking a hard line with doctors because doctors wield more power than nurses? Doctors and nurses should be held to the same performance standards. In light of hard evidence, hospitals need to grow a spine and protect their patients by dismissing—and quickly—incompetent and reckless physicians. Lives are at stake.