Kentucky Sets Precedent as First State to Decriminalize Medical Errors, Best Situation Then Before Now!

DEBARYLIFE – Kentucky is the first state to pass legislation shielding medical staff from criminal charges related to mistakes made in patient care.

Gov. Andy Beshear signed HB 159, which forbids healthcare providers from being prosecuted when they make sincere mistakes at work, during the legislative session that concluded last week.

The bill is a response to a Tennessee case from 2022 in which a patient passed away due to a medical error, and the nurse was found guilty of criminally negligent murder.

Even though former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse RaDonda Vaught admitted right away that she had given the improper drug, she was nevertheless charged with the patient’s death.

According to Pualani Kros, a nurse at The Medical Center in Bowling Green, “that message sends to nursing students and current nurses that if you tell, you’re going to be punished for it, which is not how we learn from things. So it absolutely would deter people from reporting their mistakes and potentially put patients at risk.”

Kros is the chair of the Kentucky Nurses Association’s local branch as well.

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Fears were raised by the Tennessee prosecution that it would establish a precedent criminalizing medical errors, which are normally the domain of civil courts or professional licensing boards.

Concerns about recruiting and retaining nurses in a field already facing a labor shortage were also brought up by the case’s decision.

Vaught was spared jail time, but she was placed on three years of probation for the felony conviction, and she also lost her nursing license.

There are exclusions for deliberate injury even if the new Kentucky legislation shields nurses from criminal punishment in the event of an error. Errors by nurses may still result in civil penalties.

Vaught will give a speech in Bowling Green on Tuesday at the WKU Health Sciences Building on the campus of the Medical Center at 6:00 p.m. The public is not permitted to attend this event.