“The person in question was a patient in the hospital. He was not under arrest. Had the patient been under arrest the laws/rules/policy would have been different. There was no warrant for blood draw or access to his records/test results. LEO is the one that had no legal right to do what they were trying to do in this situation.”
Thank you for understanding what I said.
In the above I am not, and have not argued against that assertion. (I don’t necessarily agree with it, but for the sake of argument I fully accept it).
In this circumstance the responsibility is with the officer and he/she will face the consequences one way or the other.
“If she had allowed this to happen contrary to law, her license would have been in jeopardy because she would have been violating laws concerning patient care and privacy.”
Utter nonsense, sorry. There is no way a nurse could be censured for following a police officer’s orders.
“Her employer would have also been held responsible for her actions.”
This is conceivably possible, but the hospital,would be in a good position to defend.
This is the nice thing about being a civil society based on rule of law. At this point it is where review of policy comes in to play on both the parts of the police and private side, in communication with each other and in cooperation to make things better for future events.
This is what is done as opposed to one side condemning and demonizing the other (and it’s always the law side being demonized).
I have some experience in jail wards in hospitals. In my experience a nurse wouldn’t follow an order from a deputy or CO if she thought it was illegal. She would say talk to the charge nurse or she would get the charge nurse. I was married to an RN for 22 years and i have been in the hospital 12 or more times since 2002. Nurses do not follow cops orders blindly unless there is gunfire on the floor.
You are wrong, medical personnel are tasked with patient protection of patients assigned to them- they are legally responsible if they allow anyone to breach the patient care or privacy of their patients. If she had complied with the LE request she would have been held legally responsible. She would have faced sanctions or loss of her license, she could have faced charges for violating patient privacy laws, she would have set herself and the hospital up for malpractice claim. LE would have been held responsible as well (case thrown out and/or possible lawsuit, possible IA investigation...) but that would not have changed her responsibility and that of the hospital.
You may not be up on all the laws concerning this, but they are there and are enforced. Medical personnel and LE are very aware of them, they deal with them all the time. LE knew he was requesting her to do something contrary to law, he was trying to BS then bully her into doing it anyway.
Someone up the thread said it was time to have coffee and let the lawyers (for LE and hospital) sort it out. That is exactly what should have happened. He knew the law was not on his side so he tried to BS and bully the nurse. She knows her responsibility to her patients and the laws concerning that so she refused to be bullied.
If the cop wanted to beat a confession out of a patient, no one in the hospital could say no? Are citizens required to stand aside and watch a policeman violate the law?
I’d love to hear your legal explanation for why no one can oppose a cop who is breaking the law...