Today was such a day.
One of the things that made the light come on is something that I cannot blog about. I want to blog about it. I want to expose JCAHO & NCDHHS oversight for abject FRAUD that it is. For when it comes to real oversight - and who to give credence to - these two organizations are MASTERS OF THE ABSURD. But this time I'm merely an observer . . . on the periphery . . . it's not my business . . . and for now, I'm going to just hold onto it. But let's just say it's a real study in contrasts.
Then I got home. And in my evening surf, I came across the following headline at the Raleigh N&O:
State Mental Health Worker GUILTY of FAILING TO REPORT ABUSE
Key words: Failing to report abuse.
From the story:
A former employee of a state mental hospital in Goldsboro pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report abuse.
Eric Jerrod Isler was one of three Cherry Hospital employees charged with felony assault by state prosecutors following a 2008 article in The News & Observer about the severe beating of patient Dean G. Smith.
Obviously, the guy probably did a little bit more than "fail to report abuse". But the point kind of is that, as a healthcare worker/provider, you can be PROSECUTED for not reporting abuse.
But here's where it gets really good:
The N.C. Attorney General’s office took responsibility for the case after the local district attorney initially dropped all charges against the three state workers, who lost their jobs at the hospital after the 2006 incident.
I repeat, the North Carolina Attorney general took responsibility for the case AFTER a District Attorney failed to take action.
Now I ask you, does this sound AT ALL familiar?
I dropped a comment on the story (I've modified it slightly here for emphasis):
So let me get this straight. You can be convicted of a crime if you FAIL TO REPORT patient abuse at a state healthcare facility (in this case abuse you were probably a part of)?BUT if you do report malpractice at at "non-profit" healthcare facility (indeed if you intervene to STOP it), your life and career can be totally disrupted/derailed (without the government so much as blinking an eye), YOU CAN- IN FACT - BE SUED FOR REPORTING and the North Carolina Attorney General's office will not lift a finger?
Seething. This state is messed up.
You see, the TRUTH is that I am a physician-in-good-standing duly licensed by the great state of North Carolina. I did what the Medical Board insists is my duty and reported bad care at a "non-profit" hospital . . . defying threats to do it. In point of fact, I could have been sued for malpractice had I rolled over and gone back to sleep and let that baby die on that fateful night twelve years ago . . . not to mention disciplined/prosecuted for failing to report.
And on the flip side (the "Catch-22" of it all), in retaliation for doing my duty as a physician in public-service, the "non-profit" hospital maliciously ripped my life in my own hometown to shreds and irrevocably altered/derailed my career. They pulled every, nasty, dirty trick in the book including a DESPICABLE "SLAPP" suit. And when I finally dragged them to trial, they swindled me at settlement with as-yet-uninvestigated/unprosecuted perjury, contempt and fraud.
And the TRUTH is that the state and Federal governments/Attorneys General (lawyers for DHHS) could have done something about it a very long time ago. Instead of stone-walling me for almost seven years - bouncing me from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, they could have told Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin and their rubber-stamping of "right people" Board members to MAKE IT RIGHT OR ELSE.
They could have told Randolph Hospital in Asheboro, North Carolina: "You get your sorry, greedy, lying butts to a table and you do what it takes to make it up to Dr. Johnson OR you can kiss your non-profit status and your Medicaid/Medicare eliligibility and your accreditation and your certificates-of-need and your very right to keep your front doors open GOODBYE. And OBTW your two top executives can go to jail."
But despite all of the noble blather about "reform" and accountability and transparency and ethics, our Attorney General did not do that.
Dr. Mary Johnson, not "right people", was medical road-kill.
And Roy Cooper does not care . . . just as Mike Sleazely before him did not care.
Very truthfully, I've been wavering on proceeding with suing the Medical Board and JCAHO and NC/USDHHS. Seriously wavering. I've never, ever wanted to go there. I'm sick of the lawyers - especially the ones in this blogosphere who cannot admit that the oversight in their own profession is seriously broken.But if I ever did not know what I have to do, I know it now.
I'm gonna have me some social change.
