A former nurse charged with sexually assaulting an incapacitated woman who later gave birth at a Phoenix long-term care facility has lost a bid to throw out DNA evidence that authorities say links him to the crime. A judge on Monday rejected Nathan Sutherland’s claim that investigators made a misrepresentation when saying in a request for a court order that 36 male Hacienda Healthcare employees whose DNA was being sought had direct access to the victim. Sutherland’s lawyer argued police were unaware of the job duties of the 36 men or whether they had contact with the then-29-year-old victim.
The patient was in pain. The doctor responded that he was a “frequent flier who was seeking narcotics.” The undertones of racism were clear, but I did not speak up.
Registered Nurses are holding a strike on Tuesday morning to protest work conditions at Chinese Hospital in San Francisco. "For the past year, we’ve given Chinese Hospital numerous proposals aimed at improving staffing, patient care, and retention of nurses for our patients and our community," said Sherry Yee, RN. "Instead, the hospital administration has failed to create a better working environment that allows us to provide proper care for our patients to the best of our ability."
The pandemic has highlighted poor care in America's nursing homes, where nearly 175,000 people have died of COVID-19 — a third of all deaths in the country. Even before the pandemic, advocates pointed to dangerous conditions in U.S. nursing homes, including staffing shortages and infection control failures.
A union representing 650 nurses at Kalispell’s Logan Health informed administrators last week that they will be walking off the job for three days starting June 1, alleging the hospital is not bargaining in good faith or paying nurses competitive wages compared to other Montana health care facilities.
Over the last few weeks, News10NBC has been investigating ambulance response time delays. AMR, the company with the city ambulance contact, admits it is experiencing a staffing shortage that is causing it to have to call mutual aid twice as often as previous years. A new program under development may soon help defer some of the calls that don’t truly need life-saving immediate care to nurse navigators.