Tarnished image

Health care professionals have a lot in common with police. One person's actions can tarnish the image of an entire work force. Local police are certainly under more scrutiny after a handful of recent fatal shootings by officers. But the judgments being cast upon local cops are nothing compared to the ones now faced by hospitals, nurses and doctors.

With the black eye from the disgusting, disease-spreading practices of Dipak Desai's Las Vegas endoscopy clinic just starting to heal, the medical profession has been slugged in the other cheek with news of a police investigation into possible intentional patient harm by nurses at Sunrise Children's Hospital.

The State Board of Nursing suspended the licenses of Jessica May Rice and Sharon Ochoa-Reyes after one infant was left in critical condition and it was determined that others were put at risk at Sunrise's neonatal intensive care unit. The action was taken after Sunrise officials asked Las Vegas police to investigate 14 incidents of disrupted infant catheters over the past six months.

The idea that nurses entrusted with caring for the valley's most vulnerable newborns would deliberately harm them is infuriating and frightening. And, like the hepatitis outbreak caused by Desai's clinic, the fact that police are investigating such an allegation is a smear on our health care system.

The two nurses are presumed innocent until proved guilty. But this case reinforces what nurses, doctors and administrators already learned from the Desai debacle, and what police have learned from a handful of rogue-cop scandals in past years: It is incumbent upon the ethical, honest and dedicated professionals to root out the incompetent, the reckless and the sociopaths too dangerous to hold the public's trust.

It appears that Sunrise managers were paying attention and took immediate action once it was clear that they had a serious problem on their hands. For this, at least, valley residents can be thankful.