Friday, September 16, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Perkins ushered out of hospital

Assembly speaker visits nurses backing union

Richard Perkins Says he was with 15 nurses forced to leave work Thursday

The lives of patients at Desert Springs Hospital were placed in danger Thursday by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, according to hospital officials.

Perkins "barged onto a patient floor trying to make a completely inappropriate political statement in a critical care unit attending to acute patients," Lori Harris, the hospital's marketing director, said in a statement.

It was the kind of "grandstanding" behavior, Harris wrote, that "endangers patients" and made it necessary for hospital officials to escort Perkins from the hospital.

Perkins, a deputy police chief for the city of Henderson, denied Harris' characterization of his presence at the hospital early Thursday, calling it "a complete lie."

Perkins said he went to the hospital to see if nurses were still being asked to leave work by management because they wore a button that read, "I'm On Spring Valley Watch," an expression of support for nurses trying to form a union at Spring Valley Hospital.

"I never even saw a patient in the critical care area," said Perkins, who is expected to announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor next week.

"Some nurses invited me to the employee lounge. I was escorted by 15 intensive care nurses who were forced off their jobs later for wearing a button. Management is hiding behind a number of lies to mask what they've done to place patients at risk. This really pisses me off. If they're trying to run over someone with their lies, they've picked on the wrong man. I may consider legal action."

Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the Valley Health System, which includes Desert Springs, Valley, Summerlin and Spring Valley hospitals, backed off their button policy, which earlier Thursday had resulted in Valley executives forcing dozens of nurses off their jobs for wearing buttons.

Gretchen Papez, a spokeswoman for Valley Health System, said the policy was changed in the interest of patient safety.

"The Valley Health System will continue to ask its Desert Springs and Valley Hospital employees not to wear buttons in support of the upcoming Spring Valley Hospital election," Papez wrote in a statement. "However, at this time, we will not require nurses to go home if they disregard this request."

According to the intensive care nurses forced off the job at Desert Springs, the nurse-to-patient ratio in their unit is supposed to be one nurse for every two patients.

Nurse Nancy DeJovin said she understood that ratio fell as far as one nurse for every four patients.

"That is very dangerous," she said. "These people are often open heart patients who are very ill."

Papez would not go into specific details about the possible compromising of patient safety, but reiterated that the change in policy was because the welfare of patients is of utmost importance.

Ten operating nurses were asked to leave their jobs at Valley Hospital for wearing buttons.

DeJovin, a registered nurse, said she was with Perkins for his entire time at the hospital -- about 6:30 a.m. until 8 a.m. -- and that he was "completely professional."

"It's a complete lie and completely ridiculous to say he did anything to compromise patient safety," said DeJovin.

DeJovin said that to get to the employee lounge the nurses and Perkins had to walk down a hallway in the intensive care unit.

DeJovin said it is regularly done by visitors and poses no harm to patients, who are in rooms.

"He never talked to a patient or even saw one of the patients," she said. "He made no speech or anything else. He never went in a patient room."

When the chief executive officer of the hospital came to speak to the nurses waiting in the lounge to go on duty, Perkins said he asked if he could listen. The CEO replied that he preferred that he wait outside.

"Speaker Perkins was very courteous, a real gentleman," DeJovin said.

During the meeting, DeJovin said, the CEO told the nurses they had to leave if they wore the buttons.

"He made us and Speaker Perkins leave by the back entrance," she said.

Marketing director Harris would not explain how Perkins' visit to the hospital endangered the lives of patients.

"You've got the statement, and that's all you're going to get, sorry," she said, giggling.

Perkins said he was dumbfounded by the actions of the executives of Valley Health System, which is owned by the UHS for-profit chain.

"I couldn't believe such a thing could happen in Las Vegas, forcing people off a job for wearing a button that wasn't harmful at all, " Perkins said. "I only thought something like that happened in a Third World country. I wanted to see if laws were being broken against United States citizens. And as far as I'm concerned, they were."

A 1945 Supreme Court decision upheld the right of union employees to wear union buttons at work, but the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that "special circumstances" exist dictating when buttons cannon be worn, particularly if they could be construed as inciting disruptive behavior.

Services Employees International Union Local 1107, which represents the nurses, filed a complaint against Desert Springs hospital Wednesday, charging unfair labor practices.

Nurses said patients never asked them about their buttons. Hospital executives wouldn't answer questions about whether any patients complained about the buttons.