The longtime executive officer of the embattled California Board of Registered Nursing resigned Tuesday, ensuring almost entirely new leadership for the agency as it strives to revamp its oversight of hundreds of thousands of caregivers.
But the sweeping reforms promised by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week face significant obstacles -- not the least of which are the governor's own budgetary gambits and his failure to fill key vacancies in his administration.
One day after Schwarzenegger replaced more than half of the panel, citing "absolutely unacceptable" delays in the discipline of wayward nurses, the board's top executive of nearly 16 years sent a one paragraph e-mail to her staff.
"It is with much sadness that I am resigning my position as executive officer of the Board of Registered Nursing," Ruth Ann Terry wrote. "All of you are the greatest staff and I know that you will continue carrying out the mission of the board."
Terry, who earned $114,000 a year, hung up on a reporter seeking comment Tuesday. In an interview last week, she agreed that the disciplinary process needed streamlining, but blamed delays on other branches of the state bureaucracy.
The near-gutting of the nine-member board occurred after The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica published an investigation Sunday showing that it takes the board an average of three years and five months to investigate and close complaints against nurses -- leaving many to practice with clean records in the interim.
Reporters found nurses who worked unrestricted for years despite documented histories of incompetence, violence, criminal convictions and drug thefts or abuse. Employers were often unaware of their histories, and some patients were injured or died as a result of poor care.
"The governor was not aware of the full extent of the problems until he read it in the paper," said Rachel Cameron, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman. "Once he confirmed the findings, he took immediate action."
On Monday, the governor abruptly replaced four board members and filled two vacancies, saying in a statement that his new panel would move "quickly and decisively" (there is still one vacancy on the board). He will swear in the new members today.
"It's fair to say the governor would accept nothing short of perfect performance from the new board," said Victoria Bradshaw, his Cabinet secretary, on Tuesday. "Incremental improvement on a broken system is not what the governor is looking for."
