In March 2006, a Long Beach hospital put state licensing authorities on notice: Two patients had accused a nurse of molesting them on a single night. One said that he massaged her breasts, the other that he groped her under her hospital gown, according to hospital and court records.
By year's end, licensed vocational nurse Carlito Paar Manabat Jr. had pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual battery. He went on to serve six months in jail and register as a sex offender.
Last February, he renewed his license, checking "yes" on the application when asked if he'd been convicted of a crime.
It wasn't until July, more than two years after first being alerted to the problem, that the California Bureau of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians took the first formal steps to revoke or restrict Manabat's license.
Today, with the case pending, Manabat is still free to practice -- though he says he doesn't, on the advice of his probation officer.
A review of the vocational nursing bureau by The Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, found many cases similar to Manabat's in which regulators acted belatedly or not at all, even when explicitly told that nurses had committed serious crimes. Some were handed renewals after reporting their own felonies to the bureau.
"Obviously the public isn't protected," said John M. Brion, an assistant clinical professor at the Duke University School of Nursing and former executive director of the Ohio Board of Nursing. "If you have a person who's already been convicted and served their time and they haven't even been charged by the board . . . I would really question what's wrong with their system."
In an interview, Manabat denied molesting his patients, saying they must have been hallucinating. He didn't fight the charges, he said, fearing a lengthy prison sentence.
The findings expand upon a Times report last month that examined the bureau's sister agency, the Board of Registered Nursing, and cited dozens of examples in which RNs retained their licenses for years despite serious or repeated criminal convictions.
Problems with the two agencies, both overseen by the state Department of Consumer Affairs, may signal a broader breakdown in the regulation of health professions. The department presides over more than 30 professional boards and bureaus, with varying and sometimes inconsistent approaches to screening for criminal offenses.
