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Upheaval on state nursing board follows investigative report
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Upheaval on state nursing board follows investigative report
The door is revolving – fast – at the state board that monitors registered nurses. Governor Schwarzenegger replaced most of its members Monday after an investigation published in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the board took more than three years on average to discipline nurses who’d generated complaints.
Jill Furillo, regional director of the California Nurses Association, told KPCC’s "AirTalk" that one reason the Board of Registered Nursing has responded so slowly is because it doesn’t control the money for investigations.
Jill Furillo: “The governor is showboating because it’s the governor who has had the responsibility to deal with this. The problem of slow enforcement of discipline cases by the BRN has been known for months.
"And neither the governor nor the Department of Consumer Affairs, which has the authority over the BRN, have requested additional funding for the investigatory staff to hasten these actions; to hasten the enforcement and the review process.”
Furillo added that the governor’s ordering state workers to take off three unpaid days a month has further slowed the nursing board’s ability to act.
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