Are Children Safe in Our Hospitals?
Doernbecher Children's Hospital fails to screen volunteers

By Lou Bank

"Volunteer accused of molesting children at Doernbecher!" That headline has not yet run on the front page of The Oregonian, but it will. It's just a matter of time. Unless we, the voting public, demand that preventative measures be taken.

I volunteer at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, OR—I spend time with chronically ill children, attempt to cheer them up. I've been doing this for a several months now, without the hospital ever attempting to train me for the work. That's pretty bad, given that the best of intentions without proper training can still lead to disaster; but worse still is the fact that the hospital never bothered to confirm my identity.

Sure, they gave me an extensive application to fill out, and that application included all of the vitals: Name, address, Social Security number, place of employment, etc. They asked me to complete a questionnaire, and they asked for a list of references. But the volunteer coordinator never asked to see identification, to prove that I was whom I claimed to be. She never phoned my place of business, to ensure that I actually did work there. She never phoned my references.

We tend to envision child molesters as brutes in ski masks, prowling the streets in windowless vans, waiting for errant children who fail to follow Mom and Dad's orders to "come right home after school." Yeah, that monster is out there, but the more frightening—and more prevalent—incarnation is the "camouflage" expert, the molester who proclaims himself a warrior on behalf of children's rights ... all the while working to get closer to his next victim. How often do we hear of the teacher, priest, or baby-sitter that shocked his or her neighbors? We simply accept too much at face value.

It seems that every day's newspaper brings a new story about child abuse. Those who study the abusers come to the same conclusion—the abuse, even if sexual in nature, stems from a need to dominate or hold power over the child. What better victim, then, than an ill child? One who has come out of surgery, or is heavily medicated? Today's predator knows where the hunting is easiest. And the folks at any care-giving facility should be watching for him, not handing out free hunting permits.

(Incidentally, the hospital also gave me an official identification badge, again without confirming my identity against any other document. So even if I never was "Lou Bank," I now have photo I.D. "proving" I am—identification authenticated by OHSU. That's the kind of "hunting permit" one of these predators could use to get into any other care facility in the Pacific Northwest, given OHSU's clout.)

So who is at fault here? Is it the volunteer coordinators at Doernbecher, who failed to confirm my identity? The management of the hospital, who failed to establish a system for proper identification, and for proper training of employees? Truthfully, while I think both should have raised their hands long ago, I think we, the voting public, are at fault.

We're more concerned with protecting property than protecting people—Oregon Ballot Measure 47 is the most concrete example of that. Oregon voters sacrificed school and library budgets in order to reduce taxes. Another example: When I went to sell my used compact disks, the store manager required me to show my driver's license; no one at Doernbecher ever bothered to do that. The store makes it policy to obtain I.D. from anyone selling them goods, in case those goods are stolen. The hospital doesn't even bother. Instead, they ask, "Who would want to hurt a child?" as if it were a rhetorical question. There is, in fact, an answer to the question, an ugly answer, and we see it in the news daily. And yet we still leave the barn door open for wolves.

The only time we pass legislation protecting people is following a major disaster, the kind that makes headlines. The most obvious laws are not enacted until humans have paid for that legislation with their lives or their souls. How many plane crashes did it take to give us the FAA? How many children died before we had what everybody now takes for granted—Child Protection Services (CPS)?

There are no laws in Oregon that require caretaking facilities—hospitals, homes for the elderly, day care centers—to check out their employees, volunteer or otherwise. I don't believe any state has these laws (though there is a bill in Florida—House Bill 335—that would do just that). Instead, each facility sets its own criteria for selecting and training employees. And I think it's pretty clear that those criteria, at least in the case of Doernbecher, are sorely lacking.

There should be laws that require these facilities to do thorough background checks, that require them to run fingerprints on every employee. There should be standardized forms that document these checks, and the Oregon Health Related Licensing Board should conduct quarterly reviews to ensure that each employee has had the full check; failure to do so should result in fines, and chronic failure to do so should result in closure.

The sick, the elderly, and our children deserve better than to have anyone off the street tending to them—and we deserve better than to have to worry about the people with whom they come into contact. Whoever suggested that you "shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth" probably didn't rely on that horse for his livelihood, and he certainly didn't rely on it for his family's well-being.

Let's be proactive. Rather than waiting until The Oregonian runs that horrifying headline, let's establish a system to minimize the possibility that such a headline will ever come to pass. Write a letter to your governor; demand that he or she endorse legislation that would require comprehensive background checks and fingerprinting for anyone working within any caretaking facility; demand the establishment of a schooling process for those workers, one which teaches the basics of child care, similar to those established by the ChildTrauma Academy at the University of Michigan; and then back up that letter with your support at the ballot box. It's been said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but I don't believe that 1 to 16 ratio is anywhere close to accurate when it comes to preventing child abuse.

Update to Mr. Bank's December 2000 article: "A patient at the Bronx Psychiatric Center claims he was molested by an employee who was a registered sex offender in Florida when he was hired." That's the first line from a February 5, 2010, article published by The (New York) Daily News—click here to read the whole piece.