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New Twist in Texas Nurses Prosecution

By Joe Consumer

Some great reporting by the Texas Tribune today about the Texas nurses who were prosecuted (and fortunately just acquitted) for anonymously reporting a doctor to the Texas Medical Board who had delivered unsafe care.  Seems the Board is not as squeaky clean as one might hope and, in fact, helped create this mess. 

When the Board notified Dr. Rolando Arafiles that a complaint had by filed, ?He went to his personal friend, Winkler County Sheriff Robert Roberts, and told him he was being harassed.?  At which point the Sheriff asked the board for confidential records.  According to the paper (and you can see the correspondence here and here):

By statute, the Medical Board may only turn over confidential records to authorities if the target of the investigation is one of the doctors the board licenses. Nurses are well outside of their purview. But Medical Board officials assumed Roberts was investigating Arafiles and apparently didn?t seek clarification ? giving Roberts the evidence he needed to seize Mitchell?s work computer and accuse her of a personal vendetta to ruin Arafiles? career

Ah, woops!  Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle's Rick Casey wrote in a column called ?Give sheriff and DA own medicine?:

But what about the sheriff and the prosecutors, who appear to have engaged in ?misuse of official information? to indict two women who were trying to protect patients?

History offers little hope that the state or the bar will hold them accountable. Maybe the voters will.

As for the Medical Board, they now say they will be more careful and are ?very relieved at the outcome of this trial, and we?re hoping that the fact that it did go to trial doesn?t discourage people from reporting dangerous activity in the future.?  Dream on.  Consumer group Texas Watch put it this way, 

Whether Ms. Mitchell was convicted or exonerated, was largely irrelevant to the long-term impact her prosecution will have on Texas patients.  The very fact that she was prosecuted will make individuals who have information that could save lives will think twice before speaking up, putting Texas patients at risk.

Texas has become the Wild West when it comes to medicine.  Our courthouses are closed and patients have no public advocates. Now, our only line of defense to protect patients from dangerous, careless or unqualified doctors, the Texas Medical Board, is hamstrung because of this prosecution.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 12, 2010 (boomark / email).