Nurses

Nurses working at Orange County sheriff's jails are hobbled in their efforts to provide excellent medical care to inmates by significant staffing shortages, insufficient training, equipment problems and communication breakdowns, according to a grand jury report released Thursday. The grand jury review was prompted by published reports about inmate deaths that raised questions about medical care at the jails.

California regulators have announced emergency measures to investigate the criminal backgrounds of all registered nurses in the state, days after The Times reported that dozens of nurses had kept their licenses for years despite multiple convictions.

Over the last two years, I have spent a significant amount of time in hospitals in L.A. and Chicago because of medical crises with various members of my extended family. And no matter how well- or little-known these hospitals are, one fact remains the same across the board: You know a good nurse the minute she/he walks into the room. Good nurses in a hospital make me weak in the knees.

A former employee has sued Kaiser Permanente, claiming that the HMO "blackballed" her for participating in a criminal investigation into the alleged dumping of a homeless woman on skid row. Irene Hernandez, 50, of Downey said Kaiser's hospital in Bellflower quit employing her as a registry nursing assistant after she cooperated with the Los Angeles city attorney's office investigation into alleged patient-dumping by the hospital giant.

Samantha McCandless began smoking when she was 9 after her teenage baby sitter hooked her on cigarettes. More than a quarter-century later, despite being a nursing supervisor at a busy trauma center, McCandless has no plans to stop. Three or four times during a 12-hour shift, McCandless takes a break and smokes in the hospital's designated area. She knows the health risks. "But I like smoking," McCandless, 36, said during a break at Louisville's University Hospital emergency room.

Libya will not execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death last month, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi said in a newspaper interview. He called the verdicts unfair. A Libyan court sentenced the six on a conviction of intentionally infecting hundreds of children with HIV. Kadafi's son, Seif Islam, told a Bulgarian newspaper that a solution would be found soon to save the six and satisfy the families of the infected children, but he gave no details.

Nicole Oswell was a straight-A student passionately interested since first grade in following in her mother's footsteps as a registered nurse. But she had to wait two years to get into Los Angeles Trade Tech's nursing program, she said, her frustration mounting as national nursing shortages worsened. Lizbeth Gutierrez got lucky. Her wait was only six months.

The nurse caring for a psychiatric patient who cut herself with a scalpel in an emergency room bathroom at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital this week has been fired, according to an internal county memo. The nurse, who was a "traveler," or temporary employee, apparently did not arrange for someone to monitor the patient to ensure that she did not harm herself, the memo said. Another supervising nurse was placed on administrative leave after the incident.

Sri Lankan nurses could help stem the Southland's nursing shortage by working in county health facilities, Dr. Bruce Chernof, head of the county Department of Health Services, suggested to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during an official visit Friday. Rajapaksa also met with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to discuss education, trade and homeland security.