Background Checks on Health Care Workers in Rhode Island
Monday, February 14th, 2005.
Rhode Island’s criminal background checks on health care workers have a fatal flaw: they only access local criminal records. Out of state crimes are virtually ignored in the hiring process, an oversight many are eager to correct in light of recent charges filed in several nursing home abuse cases. National background checks are widely supported, but funding is difficult to come by. The FBI charges $24 per fingerprint check and with more than 10-thousand health care workers in Rhode Island’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities, the charges quickly skyrocket.
From the article
In recent months in Rhode Island, three employees at a Woonsocket nursing home were indicted on neglect related charges in the death of a 93-year-old woman. A nurse at an East Providence facility was charged with felony neglect in the death of an 85-year-old woman patient and a retired janitor at a North Kingstown nursing home was charged with raping three women – ages 62, 78, and 80. Roberta Hawkins, [of the advocacy group Alliance for Better Long Term Care] says “I can’t stand it, this is 26 years I have been looking at this stuff and we all say ‘oh that’s horrible,’ horrible, yet we do nothing to correct it.”
Read the full text of the article >>
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