Hospital patients, workers and visitors fall victim to many crimes www.privateofficer.com
Posted by privateofficernews on July 25, 2008
Hospital patients, workers and visitors fall victim to many crimes www.privateofficer.com
Exclusive Investigation
Charlotte NC July 25 2008
By: Rick McCann
Executive Director
Ntl. Assoc. Private officers
It’s 3 in the morning and you’re having chest pains so you call 911 and an ambulance takes you to the nearest medical center. Or you’re involved in a bad wreck on the interstate while driving to work and you get rushed to the emergency room. Doctors and nurses meet you there and they begin to take care of you and you’re admitted to the hospital for a few days. When you get to your room you begin to think about your family, do you have insurance to cover these medical bills and maybe even about the fact that you’ll miss some time from work This scene plays out hundreds of times a day across America.
But one of the things that hospital patients seldom ask themselves or consider is, am I safe here?
Most people assume that when they are at a medical facility surrounded by caring professionals that everyone is going to take care of them and their property. Who really thinks that they could be robbed or raped while at the hospital? When we are injured or sick, the last thing that we want to think about is that someone, maybe even a hospital employee will take advantage of us in some way. But the facts are that there is a better chance of being a victim of a crime in a hospital than in your own home, workplace or while out shopping at a mall.
Many hospitals today are caverness and spread out making them a city within a city. Floors upon floors, buildings on top of buildings, block after block the hospital stands as much a monument to itself as to a medical service to the city.
In Atlanta Georgia the Grady Healthcare System one of the largest hospitals in the area and the hospital that serves the city’s low income, has found itself in the spotlight lately as it struggled to stay afloat financially but also because of a recent theft of a diamond ring from a dying patient and the arrest of an employee in that case. But that’s not the only theft or victimization of a Grady hospital patient.
An Open Records Act request from an area news reporter showed that numerous patients have come to Grady for medical care since January 2007 and have left wondering what happened to their valuables or money.
“It’s got to be clearly 180 degrees from what we expect in an institution of care and shelter,” said Atlanta attorney Mark Spix, who says he represented a man whose wife lost an engagement ring after being flown to Grady in October 2004 with fatal injuries. “I just think that is unacceptable.”
There were 260 thefts involving patients, employees and visitors in 2007, compared with 262 in 2006 and 279 in 2005, Grady spokeswoman Denise Simpson said.
An Open Records Act request from an area news reporter showed that numerous patients have come to Grady for medical care since January 2007 and have left wondering what happened to their valuables or money.
“It’s got to be clearly 180 degrees from what we expect in an institution of care and shelter,” said Atlanta attorney Mark Spix, who says he represented a man whose wife lost an engagement ring after being flown to Grady in October 2004 with fatal injuries. “I just think that is unacceptable.”
There were 260 thefts involving patients, employees and visitors in 2007, compared with 262 in 2006 and 279 in 2005, Grady spokeswoman Denise Simpson said.
Up the interstate and just a few miles from Atlanta at the Keystone Hospital in Marietta, an employee there has been charged with sexual battery after the orderly wheeled the woman from surgery into a private room and fondled her. Police are still searching for the employee identified as Raphael Telles.
Police reports detailing reports of sexual abuse and assaults at Chandler Regional Medical Center in Arizona showed that there were five allegations include the firing of two employees and the resignation of another since January 2006.
The most serious allegation stems from a patient complaint against certified nursing assistant Nathaniel DeLa Cruz. According to a Chandler police report, a chronically ill patient says that DeLa Cruz molested her and performed sex acts in front of her during her several stays at the hospital between 2003 and 2005. She reported the incidents while staying at another Valley hospital in 2007.
A nurse’s aid walking to her car in Pineville North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, was gunned down in the parking lot of the Carolina Medical Center by an ex-boyfriend. She was later found in her car by a hospital security officer. A visitor to a California hospital is accosted in the parking lot near her vehicle and knifed to death when she refused to hand over her purse.
The most serious allegation stems from a patient complaint against certified nursing assistant Nathaniel DeLa Cruz. According to a Chandler police report, a chronically ill patient says that DeLa Cruz molested her and performed sex acts in front of her during her several stays at the hospital between 2003 and 2005. She reported the incidents while staying at another Valley hospital in 2007.
A nurse’s aid walking to her car in Pineville North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, was gunned down in the parking lot of the Carolina Medical Center by an ex-boyfriend. She was later found in her car by a hospital security officer. A visitor to a California hospital is accosted in the parking lot near her vehicle and knifed to death when she refused to hand over her purse.
A bank robbery suspect in May of this year led police on a chase through Nassau County New York before fleeing on foot into the medical center causing an all out panic and lock down of the facility as armed security and police officers searched the entire facility floor by floor, room by room until the suspect was captured.
At another hospital an employee is caught stealing patient social security numbers and opening credit cards in their names and charging more than $150,000 before she is arrested.
While most hospitals do have some form of security including guards, security cameras, electronic key systems and checks and balances to make them a safe secure place to work, visit or be a patient at, it’s fast becoming obvious to many in the security field that hospitals need to do more.
Like a city with a rising crime rate, police officers can’t be on every block John Mason, a healthcare security director and author said. Security officers can not be outside every patient’s room or in every hallway.
While most hospitals do have some form of security including guards, security cameras, electronic key systems and checks and balances to make them a safe secure place to work, visit or be a patient at, it’s fast becoming obvious to many in the security field that hospitals need to do more.
Like a city with a rising crime rate, police officers can’t be on every block John Mason, a healthcare security director and author said. Security officers can not be outside every patient’s room or in every hallway.
While medical facilities do run background checks on employees, patrol interior hallways and exterior parking areas and monitor those doing business, working or being treated at the facility, there is no way to be every place and see everything all of the time Mason said.
Patients and visitors need to be aware that they could become a victim of crime at a hospital just like they could at a mall or in their house.
Bad people and those looking to take advantage of us are everywhere Mason said.
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