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Hospital Trio Guilty of Delay in Reporting Alleged Sex Assault
AP
October 02, 2008
SCOTTSDALE — A judge has found three Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn workers guilty of failing to immediately report an alleged sexual assault of a patient.
The verdict handed down by Scottsdale City Court Judge Wendy Morton Tuesday concluded a trial that began Sept. 16 in which four Scottsdale Healthcare workers had been charged for failing to report in a timely manner the alleged sexual assault of a 23-year-old female heart patient who was incapacitated.
Sue Livengood, associate vice president of Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn; Shelly VanVianen, a registered nurse; and Dr. Patricia Crellin, a consulting psychiatrist for the hospital, each could face up to six months in jail and a $2,500 fine for the offense, a misdemeanor.
All three were present in the courtroom when the verdicts were read.
Livengood and VanVianen could face disciplinary actions from the Arizona State Board of Nursing. Hospital officials say the verdict is unwarranted.
“We strongly disagree” with the ruling, said hospital spokesman Stephen Roman.
“We think that there was ample evidence to show that the workers did not have a reasonable basis to determine if the alleged incident really happened to move forward with immediately reporting it,” Roman said.
“The good, hardworking professional hospital workers were following the patient’s wishes through the process by not calling police when they first heard about this in December — and those were adamant wishes,” Roman said. “But she later changed her mind and wanted the police called.”
Roman said the hospital plans to appeal Morton’s decision.
The alleged victim had conveyed to her speech therapist on Dec. 12 that she had been sexually assaulted in her room in the intensive-care unit on Nov. 17 by a white man in his 30s with short, spiked hair and wearing hospital “scrubs.”
An internal investigation was launched by hospital officials into the alleged incident, but they did not inform Scottsdale police about it until Jan. 14.
The former patient was shown about 70 pictures of hospital workers but did not recognize any of them. Scottsdale police closed the case in April due to a lack of evidence. The workers were charged in May.
A charge of failure to report the alleged assault was dropped against Madlyn Constantino, a rehabilitation coordinator. All four workers remain employed by the hospital in their same capacities, Roman said.
(c) YellowBrix 2008
aggiegirl1989
about 1 month ago
52 comments
no this isnt a psych hospital it is one of the premier hospital systems in the scottsdale, az area. i am shocked that this wasnt reported weather the patient wanted it reported or not because it was a CYA thing and now its coming back to bite them in their collective asses! its a shame because here was a very ill very vunerable young patient in an ICU for god sake and this was able to happen to her!
Breniaha
about 1 month ago
60 comments
Is this a psych hospital? Assuming so I will say this. If you work psych everyday then you hear these type alligations DAILY so I can see why the police were not contacted right away so many have fixed delusions. I know generally a hospital investigator will be contacted first, but as soon as they find reason to believe it is a true sexual assult the law should be brought in. This is a touchy situation and if the people who made this judgement have never been exposed to psych pts they have no idea what these nurses and MDs go through everyday.
chd123
about 1 month ago
1860 comments
Wow...I used to work there. I am still fairly new to the profession, so opinions welcome...
You assume when you tell your higher ups, that they will look into things and do what is right, such as call the authorities when necessary. Lots of hospitals do their internal investigations before getting anyone else involved, wrong as it may be.
We had an elderly lady with beginning dementia who claimed that someone on our night shift was "beating" her. We did what we thought was our duty and reported this to management, who then got Risk involved, and it went from there...The woman had no signs of abuse, but we had to take her word for it. According to this ruling, should I have directly called the police? Could I have been sent to jail if it had gone that far? Guaranteed my boss would have disciplined me heavily for not following protocol, chain of command, all that crap...Scary...
I don't know enough about this story to have an opinion. Was she sedated? Did she mistake a bedbath while incapacitated for assualt? Was it a very lucid dream brought about by drugs?
Either way, we should be the patient advocate, no argument there. Curious to see what others think...