Probes Appear to Clear Facility

Good Samaritan Hospital officials say two reports show the hospital was not spying on its employees when they installed cameras hidden in clocks around the hospital.

Nurses complained in November about the cameras, which were installed in break rooms, a fitness center and other areas, because they believed the cameras invaded their privacy. They said people often changed clothes or took medications in those areas.

A nurse, Sussette Nacorda, also filed a crime report with the Los Angeles Police Department.

After a visit to the hospital, detectives found the break rooms were “of a coed nature.” The small lockers, they added, “did not appear ... to be the type of lockers where changing of clothes would take place, due to the locker size and location in what appeared to be common areas.”

The case was classified a “non-crime.” LAPD spokesman Jason Lee said last week that “means we responded but no crime was committed.”

A technical consulting firm also investigated the matter as part of an agreement made by the unions and the hospital in a mediation meeting. The company, TECM Inc., found no evidence that anyone watched footage on the recorder or that any passwords were assigned for access. The firm said that five log-ins to the machine came from technicians testing the system.

Officials at Good Samaritan said the documents prove what the hospital has been saying all along: that the break rooms are not private areas and that the system never recorded any images or sounds.

“Hopefully, this will give peace of mind for people who may have been concerned about this,” said Lexie Schuster, vice president for human resources at the hospital. “The lack of communication [with the unions] was a problem that has been acknowledged and obviously we’re very sorry that it happened.”

Yoli Rios, an official with the California Nurses Assn., which represents nurses at Good Samaritan, said she was not satisfied. Rios said the union was still hoping the city attorney’s office would file charges. The city attorney’s office could not be reached for comment.

Rios dismissed the police report as very preliminary and said that if the city attorney’s office decided to dig deeper, they would find “substance” to the allegations.

She also said the consulting company’s review was biased because the hospital was paying for the review. And, she added, the report did not answer many of the union’s other questions, such as whether the cameras actually recorded any images.

“The scope of the report is narrow,” she said. “We question it and think it’s pretty self-serving.”