Hospital Official Quits Amid Probe of Staff’s Overtime

The administrator in charge of psychiatric nursing care at the Olive View Mid-Valley Hospital in Van Nuys has resigned during an investigation of allegations that she allowed four members of her staff to claim about $6,200 in unearned pay, county health officials said Monday.

The administrator, Dianne Engelund, who supervised a unit with 52 beds for acutely disturbed psychiatric patients, resigned Dec. 12, about two days after the hospital’s personnel department began its investigation, said Doug Bagley, Olive View’s administrator. He said Engelund oversaw 40 nurses and 40 nursing attendants working three shifts. Olive View is one of six hospitals run by Los Angeles County.

“We are fairly sure that there were some time-card irregularities, but our investigation is not yet concluded,” Bagley said. “Miss Engelund was removed from her assignment a couple of days before she resigned.”

Bagley said the four nursing attendants, who assist registered nurses, are enrolled in an in-house training program that Engelund helped organize.

“It appears they were not in class at least some of the time they were scheduled to be,” Bagley said. “They were probably not on duty. I don’t know where they were.” Referring to Engelund, Bagley said: “She authorized the overtime claims without securing the proper approval from her superiors. It seems that she felt the attendants deserved extra pay for taking part in the program. She appears to have been overzealous on behalf of the attendants but it does not appear that she gained personally in a financial way from this.”

The allegations came from nursing administrators who supervised Engelund, Bagley said. Bagley said the investigation, being conducted by the hospital’s personnel department, has focused on four nursing attendants at the hospital for whom Engelund allegedly authorized payments for 20 to 25 hours more than their usual 40-hour work week--at 1 1/2 times the $6.50 an hour they usually earn. The practice appears to have begun at the start of October, but the hospital is examining records going back two years, Bagley said.

It is a violation of policy to claim pay for unworked time, Bagley said. He said that no one but Engelund has been disciplined in the matter. The four attendants have not been disciplined because “the investigation is not complete and it appears they were following the instructions of Engelund,” Bagley said.

Engelund, 47 years old, whose title was acting nursing director, said in an interview Friday that she had held the position since the retirement of a predecessor two years ago. Reached at her home in Sherman Oaks, Engelund said she resigned after being confronted with the investigation. She would not confirm or deny the allegations.

Bagley said Engelund earned about $30,000 a year in her job.