In an earlier post, ‘The Right to Quit an Abusive Employer is Under Attack’, I cited a news story about Filipino nurses who are facing criminal charges of patient abandonment for quitting their jobs. Keytwo, from Allnurses.com sent me an update…

A Suffolk County prosecutor is challenging probes by two state agencies that found patients were not placed in jeopardy when 10 nurses resigned en masse from a Smithtown nursing home.

Rulings by the state Department of Health and the state Education Department have served to bolster the nurses’ claims that their April 2006 resignations from Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center did not put anyone in danger.

They face trial in Suffolk County on charges of conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children in a ventilation unit. The nurses are asking a state appellate court to throw out the indictments.

But in court papers filed Wednesday in response to the nurses’ petition, Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato questioned whether the state Department of Health had conducted any inquiry. He cited a letter from the department’s deputy general counsel who, in response to a subpoena, wrote that the department does not “possess any records, documents or other materials” related to the nurses’ resignations.

This will play out in court.

As the nursing shortage grows, we are going to have to resort to something that hasn’t really been given a chance. That is, real investment in education at the primary and secondary level, and a nursing ladder that offers financial aid and tutoring until the gaps in our public school system are addressed. It is a lie that there are jobs Americans won’t do. We are a nation with a strong work ethic. But we want decent pay and opportunity, and when employers are looking for cheap labor they often have to look elsewhere. With a fifty-percent high school dropout rate in cities nationwide, we will have a hard time finding skilled workers, and we will lose our youth to joblessness and despair, with nothing to do but resent the immigrants who come here to work.