The Register's Editorial: 1 1/2 years later, VA still silent on patient's death

Read it all

 Bold is mine.

Eighteen months ago, Michael Deal, a 65-year-old Army veteran from Spirit Lake, died at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Des Moines. An internal investigation showed that a nurse, Bernard Nesbit, deliberately turned off the alarms that would have alerted the staff to Deal's rapidly decreasing blood-oxygen levels. Deal died was murdered, and Nesbit was fired.

 That part about the decreasing oxygen levels. Mr Deal suffocated to death. murdered just as sure as if he had shot him in the head. Just so he wouldn't be bothered. And yet, he's still a licensed nurse in the state of Iowa.



Where is our county Attorney? Turning off the alarms and allowing Mr. Deal to die is at the least, negligent homicide. It's been 1 1/2 years, why have NO charges been filed? 

Nesbit filed for unemployment benefits, which triggered a public hearing before an administrative law judge. At the hearing, Nesbit admitted switching off the patient alarms. 

He confessed to killing Mr. Deal in front of a judge. He wants unemployment? What he should get is a nice long prison sentence. 

That prompted the judge to ask the hospital's human resources specialist, Greg Smith, whether, in the seven months since the incident, the hospital had reported the matter to the state licensing board for nurses.

"No, we have not," Smith said. "We plan on it. We're just working through how that's to be done."

"What do you have to work through?" the judge asked.

"There's a lengthy process," Smith said. "It has to go up to the central office in the VA for approval to be reported to the state licensing board, and we're not sure how that process works."

7 months after the murder of Mr Deal And this scumbag is still a licensed nurse. All because some idiot bureaucrat doesn't know the procedure. 

But as unresponsive as the VA is, the state of Iowa doesn't fare much better. The Iowa Board of Nursing won't say whether the hospital ever filed a complaint regarding Nesbit. Nor will it say whether it is currently investigating Nesbit, whose license remains in good standing 18 months after Michael Deal died was murdered.

 It has been a year and a half since Michael Deal died while in the care of VA workers. His family and his fellow Iowans deserve to know whether the state and the VA are doing all they can to investigate cover up the matter.

Micheal Deal has been dead for 18 months, where is his justice?