VA nurse fired for turning off alarms gives up license
DES MOINES — A former VA nurse who allegedly contributed to the death of an Iowa veteran by turning off patient-monitor alarms has surrendered his nurse's license for at least a year.
The Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Des Moines fired Bernard Nesbit for his actions in the March 2013 case. The allegations became public last fall after he appealed for unemployment benefits. During the taped unemployment hearing, he admitted turning off alarms designed to alert medical staff when patients are in distress. He said he did so because the alarms were always going off, even when patients weren't having problems.
Documents from the Iowa Board of Nursing show Nesbit recently agreed to surrender his state license for at least a year to settle an ethics charge. However, the board did not fine him or order him to undergo any specific steps before applying for reinstatement.
During the unemployment hearing, a VA administrator said a patient died March 28, 2013, after suffering sinking blood-oxygen levels. An alarm that should have alerted medical staff to the problem had been switched off, the official said.
A respiratory therapist said the patient could have been saved if an alarm had alerted the medical staff to the drop in blood-oxygen levels, according to evidence introduced at the unemployment hearing.
The patient's family later confirmed to The Des Moines Register that he was Michael Deal, 65, of Spirit Lake. Deal was an Army veteran who was disabled by shrapnel in the Vietnam War.
Brian Galligan, a Des Moines lawyer representing the family, said Deal's survivors are glad Nesbit will be barred from providing medical care to people for at least a year. But Galligan said they're disappointed no fine was levied and the nurse could be reinstated after a year.
"There's also some concern that there's no acknowledgment of fault or responsibility for Michael Deal's death" in Nesbit's settlement agreement, Galligan said.
In the agreement he signed with the nursing board, Nesbit said he "is not admitting fault or culpability" in Deal's death. The documents say he agreed to surrender his license "to avoid the burden, expense, delay and uncertainties of a contested case hearing."
Galligan said the lack of strong penalties against Nesbit shows why patients can't rely solely on professional licensing boards to prevent problems in health care. The Deal family plans to file a lawsuit against the VA, he said. "The family doesn't want to see others go through what they've had to go through."
Kathy Weinberg, executive director for the Iowa Board of Nursing, said the board does not usually fine nurses who agree to surrender their licenses to settle disciplinary cases. She said that if Nesbit applies for reinstatement after a year, he would have to prove to the board that he had taken steps to rehabilitate himself.
Nesbit, 52, declined to comment when reached by phone. "I don't talk to The Des Moines Register," he said before hanging up.
The Register brought the incident to light last year in a story about the unemployment case. During the hearing, which was seven months after the death, a VA official said the federal agency had not yet reported the incident to the state nursing board. He said the VA was "working through" how that would be done. Since then, the VA has declined to comment on whether it told the nursing board about the allegations. Weinberg said she couldn't comment on what led the nursing board to investigate the case.
A VA administrator who testified in the unemployment case said Nesbit had been working on a "last chance agreement" with the hospital because of previous disciplinary issues, which the official didn't specify. An administrative law judge denied Nesbit's appeal for unemployment benefits.