Glendale Hospital Fires 4 More Respiratory Workers

Glendale Adventist Medical Center officials said Friday that they have fired four more respiratory workers--including three whose conduct was questioned in connection with Efren Saldivar, the respiratory therapist who allegedly confessed that he killed 40 to 50 patients there.

A fifth employee has been put on administrative leave with pay, the hospital said. In addition, the head of the respiratory care unit and that person’s superior are “no longer with the hospital,” a spokesman said.

Glendale police said they were investigating the four fired employees in connection with the deaths at the hospital, but declined to give details. “We don’t want them to know what we know,” Sgt. Rick Young said.

Hospital officials would not specify Friday why they have taken actions against additional employees, citing the ongoing criminal investigation. They said the firings came after an internal investigation by the hospital.

Saldivar, who allegedly told police he was angered by seeing terminally ill patients kept alive, purportedly confessed to killing patients at Glendale Adventist starting about six months after he was hired in 1989.

In response to the allegations, hospital officials fired Saldivar, and state officials have suspended his license pending revocation proceedings. Including Saldivar, the hospital has now fired five respiratory therapists.

Three of those who were fired had been previously suspended after police said their conduct raised red flags. Police would not specify what concerned them about the employees, but in his alleged confession, Saldivar said he was encouraged in his actions when other employees began giving him room numbers of terminally ill patients.

Also, one respiratory therapist, Bob Baker, allegedly told authorities that another employee, Elmer Diwa, informed him 1 1/2 years ago that Saldivar had a “magic syringe.” Baker also reportedly said that he had found morphine and a paralyzing drug in Saldivar’s locker.

Although it was evident from documents in the case that Saldivar was the focus of the criminal investigation, one law enforcement source has said a search warrant names two other respiratory therapists at the hospital as part of the inquiry.

Hospital officials said Friday’s departure of two managers in the respiratory care department was a mutual agreement. They are seeking a new head for the unit, they said.

They said the remaining workers in the hospital’s 38-member respiratory care staff, suspended earlier as a precautionary measure, had returned to work after being cleared in three investigations: one internal, another by police, and yet another by outside experts hired by the hospital.

“I’m encouraging the public to . . . trust [that] the hospital is doing everything it can,” said Mark Newmyer, a hospital spokesman. Newmyer said that no patients have asked to leave the hospital.

Newmyer also said that the hospital is setting up a task force to deal with the 475 phone calls from the public on the case, most of them from relatives who are worried that their loved ones may have been victims of Saldivar’s alleged crimes.

A spokesman with the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the state Respiratory Care Board, said he did not have information on the hospital firings. Gloria Barrios of the state attorney general’s office also declined to comment except to say, “We are monitoring the situation.”

Police have brought no charges against Saldivar, a 28-year-old Tujunga resident whose whereabouts are still undetermined.

Saldivar gave his purported confession to police after being detained March 11. But police were forced to release him after failing to find corroborating physical evidence.

Details of the confession were recounted in an affidavit filed in connection with a hearing to suspend Saldivar’s license.

In the affidavit, police say that Saldivar said he suffocated patients, injected them with paralyzing drugs and failed to provide medical treatment.

The affidavit states that Saldivar had developed his own ethical criteria for choosing his victims, targeting those who were unconscious, had given orders not to be resuscitated, and looked as if they were “ready to die.”