VENTURA : Understaffing Claim by Nurses Is Rejected

State investigators have rejected nurses’ claims that Ventura County Medical Center is chronically understaffing the wards that serve its most critically ill patients.

“We interviewed staff, we reviewed staffing records,” said Elizabeth Mock, a supervisor with the state Department of Health Services Licensing and Certification.

“We did not find that to be a problem,” she said.

Nurses, who submitted as many as 60 examples of what they considered unsafe staffing practices, were astounded at the state agency’s decision.

“I just don’t know how they could come to that conclusion,” said Sheila Raives, an intensive care nurse who helped organize the effort.

“I know for a fact that there were times the intensive care nursery was two people short” of required staffing, she said.

Specifically, the California Nurses Assn. contended that administrators floated staff members who lacked proper training into intensive care units or left wards short-staffed.

In one case, a nurse made a medication error that, if left unchecked, could have led to complications.

Hospital administrators have consistently denied the charges, saying they are careful to meet state and local hospital standards for the critical care wards.

The state licensing agency investigated the claims, and in a one-page statement filed last week found no deficiencies in the hospital’s staffing.

Strict California standards govern how many registered nurses and other trained staff members must be in intensive care units at any given time.

Raives said that staffing problems continue at the county hospital and that nurses will again bring their concerns to the state.

“If it’s a question that the nurses need to document differently so that even the state could figure out, it could be a matter of adjusting how we document,” she said.

Mock said the state is required by law to investigate every complaint and would follow up if the nurses came forward with new information.