在教育部门，有一种被称为“传递垃圾”的做法，即学校允许被指控有不当性行为的教师或管理人员悄悄辞职，而不是面临逮捕或其他法律后果。毋庸置疑，这种做法极其有害，因为它允许性侵犯者在其他地方找到工作并继续虐待孩子。不幸的是，在某些地区，护士似乎也有类似的做法。
根据哥伦比亚广播公司新闻最近发表的一篇报道，科罗拉多州丹佛市有一名男护士，目前正面临多项在工作期间性侵女性的指控。文章中引用的一个故事涉及一名女性，她在 2013 年平安夜因腹痛去医院。她接受了一剂吗啡来缓解疼痛，然后失去知觉。当她醒来时，一名男护士正在摸索并亲吻她。后来，护士在 Facebook 上找到了她并加为好友。
一年半后，这名妇女才报告了这件事。当她这样做时，警方开始调查有问题的男护士。他们找到了另外八名声称与该男子有类似经历的女性。他们还发现，指控不仅限于 Poudre Valley 医院——2013 年平安夜事件发生地。
相反，当他最终被捕时，男护士已经被三个不同的医院解雇了。2013 年，也就是圣诞节前夕事件发生前不久，他还被报告在内布拉斯加州一家医院发生了“不明事件”。他的一些受害者甚至向警方报告了他的不当行为。这些事件都不重要。警方显然从未对这名男子提出指控，他工作的医院似乎没有通知州执照委员会或未来的雇主。至少，没有一个州执照委员会对护士采取过任何行动。结果，所谓的捕食者能够接触到一个又一个受害者。
如何防止这些事件发生？医院可能会进行更严格的背景调查，从嫌疑人的前雇主那里寻找信息。由于没有人提出指控，该男子没有犯罪记录，也没有任何逮捕令。不过，从多少家医院雇用然后解雇他来看，简单的参考或验证检查应该会找到一些答案。
可以说，更大的问题是医院可以选择不向有关当局披露此类事件之一。在CBS新闻报告指出，一个或两个医院可能已经报告了犯罪嫌疑人科罗拉多州的护板，但也指出，董事会始终保持，直到他们决定采取纪律行动的报告保密。护理委员会绝对没有采取纪律处分，并且拒绝透露有问题的男护士是否曾经成为投诉或调查的对象。
不过，有两件事是肯定的。首先，科罗拉多州没有任何法律要求医院向州监管机构报告员工不当行为指控。其次，科罗拉多州护理委员会不对执照申请人进行背景调查。因此，因不当行为指控而被解雇的护士很容易在没有适当审查的情况下找到新工作。一项要求在医院之间更好地分享不当行为指控的法律将有助于防止被指控的掠夺者找到新工作。
According to a report recently published by CBS News, there is a male nurse in the Denver, Colorado, who is currently facing numerous charges for sexually assaulting women while on the job. One story cited in the article involved a woman who went to the hospital on Christmas Eve 2013 for abdominal pain. She received a dose of morphine to help with the pain and then fell unconscious. When she woke up, a male nurse was groping and kissing her. Later, the nurse found and friended her on Facebook.
It was a year and a half before the woman reported the incident. When she did, police started investigating the male nurse in question. They found eight other women who claimed to have had similar experiences with the man. They also found that the accusations weren't limited to Poudre Valley Hospital—where the Christmas Eve 2013 incident occurred.
On the contrary, the male nurse had been fired from three different hospitals by the time he was finally arrested. He'd also been reported for an "unspecified incident" at a Nebraska hospital in 2013, shortly before the Christmas Eve incident. Some of his victims even reported his misconduct to the police. None of these events mattered. Police evidently never pursued charges against the man and the hospitals where he worked seemingly failed to notify state licensing boards or future employers. At very least, no state licensing board ever took action against the nurse. As a result, an alleged predator was able to gain access to one victim after another.
How could these incidents have been prevented? The hospitals probably could have run stronger background checks, seeking out information from the suspect's former employers. Because no one pressed charges, the man didn't have a criminal record, nor were there any warrants out for his arrest. However, judging by how many hospitals employed and then fired him, a simple reference or verification check should have found some answers.
Arguably the bigger problem is that hospitals can opt not to disclose something like one of these incidents to the proper authorities. The CBS News report indicated that a hospital or two may have reported the suspect to Colorado's nursing board, but also noted that the board always keeps reports confidential until they decide to take disciplinary action. The nursing board definitely never took disciplinary action and has refused to disclose whether or not the male nurse in question was ever the subject of a complaint or investigation.
Two things are for sure, though. First, Colorado does not have any laws on the books that demand hospitals to report employee misconduct allegations to the state regulatory body. Second, the Colorado nursing board does not run background checks on license applicants. As a result, it's easy for nurses who have been fired over misconduct allegations to find new jobs without appropriate amount of scrutiny. A law demanding better sharing of misconduct allegations between hospitals would help to prevent accused predators from landing new jobs.
