Wednesday, 07/15/2009 Print Version |
Governor Swears in New Appointees to the Board of Registered Nursing
GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: OK, raise your right hand. And then when I say 'I', then you just state your name, OK?
So I -- do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States -- and the Constitution of the state of California -- against all enemies -- foreign and domestic -- that I will be bear true faith and allegiance -- to the Constitution of the United States -- and the Constitution of the state of California -- and I take this obligation freely -- without any mental reservation -- or purpose of evasion -- that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties -- upon which I am about to enter.
Thank you, very nice. Congratulations, everybody. Sit down.
Well, as you know, we had some problems with previous boards, with the previous board. And basically, before you go off and do your work, I wanted to personally swear you in and just to encourage you. When we talk about public safety we traditionally always think about, you know, protecting people on the streets and their communities and their homes, kids in schools and so on.
But I think that one of the things that people forget a lot of times is there is also a very important protection of the public in the hospitals. And I think that in the hospitals probably protection is probably more important than in any other place, because that's when the citizens are the most vulnerable and go through unbelievable trauma and operations and need to recuperate and rehab and all of those things. You know, you just have to walk through a hospital; you get to know right away the kind of conditions that people are in.
And so that's why I think nurses are so important. And, of course, we have been always big believers in nurses. We have created now how many nurses, 30,000-some nurses since I have come into office? And we want to push, because we have, of course, a shortage of nurses. So we know that, as a whole, nurses are the lifesavers. I have been in hospitals in my last 20 years enough to know, after my surgeries -- who was there 24 hours a day? Well, the nurses, not the doctors. The nurses, you know?
And so they are extraordinary and they are very dedicated and it takes a lot of patience and passion for the job and all of those things. But within any profession and every profession, there are bad players. And I think the trick of it is -- that's where the board comes in -- is to weed out and to root out those bad players and to act swiftly and to move forward so that we protect the people. That's what it is really all about. And so we just hope that you move forward.
You have all read the stories lately in the newspapers, in the LA Times, about the nurses that have violated all the rules and laws by stealing medication from patients and then wiping out and being caught asleep while no one attended to the patient, or others taking pain medication out of vials and replacing it with -- what was it they replaced it with? Saline, exactly. Saline. And then the patients all of a sudden are feeling, of course, the surgery and go through this unbelievable pain because there was no pain medication in there in the first place. So all kinds of things like this are going on, stealing the drugs and so on.
So we want to get rid of all this. I think that the people deserve better than that and I think that's where you come in. So we just want to say thank you for taking this on with such a short notice, taking on this challenge. But you are, without any doubt, the top. We have looked through your resumes and we are very, very proud of who is now on that board and so we are very happy about that.
So with that, if you have any questions about anything, please feel free. Otherwise, we'll bring the media in. If you want to bring the media in and we can do that also.
SUSAN KENNEDY:
I don’t know how many of you know Rick Rice and Ann, who have served in the Schwarzenegger administration for a number of years. Rick is our resident -- well, we've got a number of nicknames for him. (Laughter) But he's the guy we send in, when we've got a problem, to help straighten things out. And so he's got a mission to get things done, so we're basically giving you some muscle in order to cut through any of the -- it's very difficult. We know how difficult the job is in any bureaucracy but he's there to help.
GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:
It's a real challenge. And you know, what's interesting about our situation is that we get complaints from so many different areas. And sometimes it's because we do an audit, sometimes it's within our operation, that we have a briefing and someone brings up some big problem that exists. Other times, you know, through a website, Waste Watcher, where people talk about the waste and the fraud that’s going on within government.
This time it was really interesting, because it was from the LA Times, it was from a story that we got this. And then we followed up, Vickie followed up immediately and Kim Belshé -- where is Kim Belshé? She was here with me just a few minutes ago. I wanted to bring her also. So it's interesting where we get this information. We don’t care where we get it from; we always follow up and we want to act on those things as quickly as possible. So action, action, action.
SUSAN KENNEDY:
Do you want me to get Kim?
GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:
Well, if she's not around that's OK. You guys are ready? I knew it, I knew it. Ready? Very nice.
Well, I'm sure that you all heard about just recently the kind of problems that we had with some of the nurses here in California and also with our California Board of Registered Nurses and the lack of action.
So I just swore in our new members of the California Board of Registered Nurses and I want to thank them very much for coming in so quickly on such short notice. These are really outstanding individuals here, with great backgrounds, that are very passionate about the profession and so we are very happy about that.
And, of course, they will take on a very critical job, which is to protect the people of California. The board must act decisively when we find out there is a problem. Incremental changes are not going to help anybody and we have to do everything that we can to weed out the bad actors.
Now, as I just explained to everyone here, that I'm a big believer in California nurses. I myself have been in the hospital many times on various different surgeries, so I know the people that are with you 24 hours a day and that really keep you alive are the nurses. Doctors come and go. Of course they're all extremely important but nurses are there 24 hours a day.
And, as I've said, I've always witnessed just the most dedicated nurses; this is my personal experience. But at the same time, as with every profession, there are bad actors -- and I think the same is in the nursing profession -- and so we want to make sure that we get rid of them as quickly as possible.
And as many of you know -- I'm sure you've read the investigative story by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica -- it is unconscionable that the board has not acted faster, that it sometimes takes three and a half years to investigate claims of misconduct by the various different nurses. The nurses remain on the job during that time despite being accused of violence, of incompetence, drug theft and the list goes on and on and on.
So the day after the investigation was published in the LA Times we immediately replaced six of the seven appointed members and they are here today and we are very happy about that.
A lot of times when we think about public safety we only think about, you know, keeping people safe in the neighborhoods or on the streets, or kids in schools. But actually, the place where we also have to pay attention to and where public safety is extremely important, is in hospitals. That's where the nurses come in. This is when the people are at their most vulnerable, after surgery and trauma and so on. And this is why it is critical that the board that oversees the 350,000 nurses acts swiftly in order to protect the people of California. That's why it's necessary to replace this board, that's why it was necessary to act immediately on this.
We get information from all different sources that will help us in this particular case. For instance, we have gotten the information from the newspaper, from the LA Times, so we want to thank them for this great story. But we also get our information a lot of times from auditors, from the inspector general, internal briefings. We many times get stories about where we can go in right away and fix things within the boards and commission or within government. And this time it was a newspaper story. So we welcome -- it doesn’t matter to us where we get the story from, or the complaint; we will act on it very quickly.
So again, I want everyone to know that the 38 million people in our state should get their money's worth and they should be protected, if it is in the schools or if it is on the streets, neighborhoods, or also in the hospitals.
And so if you have any questions about any of that, please feel free.
QUESTION/ANSWER:
QUESTION: Governor?
GOVERNOR: Yes?
QUESTION: When it comes to the boards and commissions, we understand the latest budget revision package includes about $2 million in savings when it comes to boards and commissions, cutting back, merging, consolidating and so forth. Does that go far enough for you?
GOVERNOR: As we have said, that we have to look at everything where we can save money and, even if a board or a commission uses just a few million dollars, those are a few million dollars that we can use. If that board or commission is not really needed, then it's very important to get rid of that board or commission and use that money for Healthy Family program or to help some more AIDS patients, or to get more people helped with in-home services, or whatever it might be.
QUESTION: Governor, are you satisfied with the $50 million in savings that's in the current budget revision package that you're negotiating?
GOVERNOR: Well, as you know, we are still in the middle of the negotiations, so I cannot give you exact numbers because we have not come to an agreement on all the boards and commissions. That's one of the items that's still open.
But as I said and I made it clear to the legislative leaders, it's very important for the people of California to know that we are fighting to go and to cut expenses in our state and to make sure that we live within our means and to also recognize that we have a shortfall of $26 billion in our revenues and we've got to deal with that. And we've to deal with it in a straightforward way where we have to make cuts but at the same time do everything that we can to make government more efficient and to get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse that's going on within those programs.
And there are plenty of them going on, even though sometimes you read lately that there is not that much going on, why are we making such a big fuss about it? There is plenty of it going on. And I think there are billions of dollars that the taxpayers can save when we root out this waste, fraud and abuse and we're going to do that. We're not going to sign a budget if we don’t get rid of that, because there is no reason why the taxpayers ought to pay for waste and fraud and abuse.
And also, as I said, I will not raise -- I will not sign a budget that raises taxes and that does not deal with the necessary cuts in order to really move on and to get us out of this financial crisis. And it's very important as we do the budget, as you know, not just to think about right now the cuts, because that's a tendency that sometimes legislators here have; let's do just the get-out-of-town budget.
This is the wrong year to do that. This year we have to go and look at the budget, how do we fix it this year and also what effect will it have in the out-years, the next year and the year after that and the year after that, so that in the future we can cut that line of spending increase, cut it down and bring it down to reality.
QUESTION: Governor, beyond replacing board members -- beyond replacing the board members, what concrete steps are you or the board, the new board, going to take to shorten the delay in time that it takes to enforce nurses who have problems? One of the issues highlighted in today's paper was the furloughs, which are basically taking fee money paid to the nursing board and using it to plug federal general funds (Inaudible) vacancies that you've left in place. So what's going to be done concretely to address the problems?
GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, let me just explain to you, money has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency and to go in there and have the will to go and say, "This nurse has committed a crime and we're not going to let that nurse continue working on the job and continue stealing medication and continue taking medication while she's on the job, or he is on the job," and all of this.
So anytime you see a problem, let's get in there and fix it. It has nothing to do with money. I think all it has to do with is efficiency and people having the will and being passionate about their profession and wanting to go and protect that profession. Because, like I said, we have great nurses in California. Let's get rid of the bad actors in there.
And that's what I think that this board is going to do, unlike the previous board that has not acted as quickly. People get into this habit, "Well, we're in government. Let's just go through the routine."
And sometimes -- or I would say many times -- what drives me crazy is when you protect the provider and not actually the receiver, the person that receives, if it is protecting the teacher rather than the child, protecting the nurse rather than the patient, protecting the doctor rather than the patient. We've got to make sure, in whatever we do, that we always protect the consumer, the patient, the child, the person that receives the treatment.
The same is also -- we've had this discussion about in-home services. There is a tremendous kind of will to protect the provider of in-home services but not, in the end, the person that gets the services and that gets the treatments. And that's what we want to make sure of, is that it all goes to the receiver.
Yes?
QUESTION: Governor, are you going to be able to seal the deal, the budget deal, in the 1:30 Big Five? And if not, what are the last remaining hurdles?
GOVERNOR: Well, I can't promise you that I will seal it at 1:30 but at 1:30 we will get together.
First of all, let me just say that the legislative leaders have shown a willingness to make this budget work. I think that everyone, I get the feeling, has made compromises. And I think when you see that, when you come to the meetings and you get that feeling that they are at the right place at the right time and the timing is perfect, the rhythm comes together, there is no nastiness in the discussions -- no blowups, chairs flying and what usually are the routines -- there's none of that.
So I think that we have a good shot of getting the budget done today but there are still, I have to just caution, there are still some very important things that are not resolved. You know, some of them have to do with the immediate budget and others with the out-years. But that doesn't mean that we cannot do it. I think, like I said, there's a will there to get it done. So I'm looking forward to meeting with them again at 1:30.
Yes?
QUESTION: Governor, pension reform is off the table for this go-round. Have you got any idea of when it will it be back on the table?
GOVERNOR: As soon as we have done this budget, we all recognize that we have to do the energy reorg of bringing the energy departments and agencies together under one roof, we have to talk about pension reform, we have to talk about water. Those are all the things that will happen right after the budget is done.
But I felt like I didn’t want to, since it is a longer discussion -- even though it only took 60 seconds to make the changes in the pension. But now, in order to undo it, which I understand, to undo something it always takes much more effort. But nevertheless, again, everyone understands that we are running out of money, that we have at least $300 billion of unfunded liabilities there in the pensions. And this is not even talking about the health care for retired state employees and all this. We've got to solve those things. We cannot continue promising people things that we cannot deliver.
Anyway, thanks very much. Thank you. Yeah, there's one more over here.
QUESTION: Governor, with no new taxes, can we assume that every Californian is going to feel the pain of the deal you work out here?
GOVERNOR: I think that if you have a loss of revenues in the state of approximately $27 billion since last year and when you see a loss in the corporate sector, companies, small businesses, large businesses and when you see a decrease in income in families, I think everyone inevitably has to pull back and tighten their belt. And everyone has to make certain sacrifices, absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you.
