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St. Vincent's Strike
After nurse firings, DPH begins inspection of
Worcester hospital By Michael Cohen, Globe Correspondent,
5/4/2000
WORCESTER, Mass.—In the wake
of the firing of three nurses for alleged lapses in patient care
at the Worcester Medical Center, the state Department of Public
Health has launched a full-scale inspection of the hospital.
A team of 12 inspectors walked into the medical
center unannounced late Tuesday afternoon to begin the review, which
could take a week, state officials said.
''This will be a top-to-bottom review of the entire
facility,'' said Paul Jacobsen, deputy commissioner of public health.
Jacobsen said the inspection was ordered in response to a request
from Governor Paul Cellucci to step up oversight at the hospital,
which is in the throes of a 35-day nurses' strike.
''We were a little surprised with this en masse
arrival of people, but we are cooperating fully with the DPH,''
said Paula Green, spokeswoman for the hospital.
The move for a comprehensive review of operations
at the medical center follows Monday's disclosure that nurses recruited
to work at the hospital during the strike had been fired for poor
patient care.
''The directive from the governor was to make sure
that patient safety was paramount,'' said John Birtwell, Cellucci's
press secretary.
According to state and hospital officials, two nurses
were fired April 25 after they left a patient unattended for nearly
an hour in a recovery room following surgery. A third nurse was
discharged April 28 after she failed to check identification bracelets
and brought a newborn to the wrong mother, who proceeded to breastfeed
the child.
Yesterday, William Wood, director of the state Division
of Registration, defended the fast-tracking of license checks for
out-of-state nurses who are replacing strikers at the medical center.
Responding to criticism from Secretary of State
William Galvin, Wood said that the licensing was faster but still
thorough.
Wood also said that two of the three nurses who
were fired were previously licensed Massachusetts nurses and had
not be cleared under the fast-track system.
Since the strike began, DPH has had one or two inspectors
in the hospital on a daily basis. As of yesterday afternoon, the
daily monitoring had not turned up any new problems, Jacobsen said.
The Worcester Medical Center is the new home of
the former St. Vincent Hospital. Tenet Healthcare, the nation's
second largest for-profit health care company, bought the old St.
Vincent's and moved operations to the newly constructed medical
center April 1.
The former St. Vincent's nurses walked off the job
March 31 after failing to reach a contract with Tenet. Staffing
levels, and a requirement for mandatory overtime at the discretion
of management, are the issues blocking an agreement.
To staff the hospital, Tenet has used more than
200 replacement nurses from an employment service in Colorado.
Galvin asked the Legislature and the state inspector
general Tuesday to investigate the propriety of the fast-track approach
to granting credentials to the out-of-state nurses.
But yesterday, state Representative Harriette Chandler,
House chairwoman of the joint health care committee, said she is
satisfied that the registration board acted properly.
''I'm not in favor of scabs, and you can underline
that. But we can't allow an unsafe situation to occur here,'' said
Chandler, a Worcester Democrat. ''The board has to protect the public
safety, and I can't believe it would be in the best interest of
the public to not have the replacement nurses available and force
the hospital to shut down.''
This story ran on page B05 of the Boston Globe
on 5/4/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
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