• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Kino hospital security blamed for $1 million in drug thefts

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 22, 2004

Critics blame the deterioration of Kino Community Hospital's security and neglected safeguards for the biggest drug theft in Arizona, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

For several months, federal authorities investigated nearly two years of hospital pharmacy thefts, where more than 200,000 pills, mostly narcotic painkillers, were stolen. People connected to the hospital say security lapses are a reason for the thefts.

"There were enough policy and security lapses to give whatever crook was in the pharmacy a chance to do what he was going to do," said Cindy Resnick, a Kino community advisory board member and former state legislator. "If you leave your front door open long enough, eventually someone will walk in and start stealing things."

Reports of neglected security practices, such as locking up patient medication, prompted a hospital security review and update.

"We got new equipment, with locks, in place throughout the hospital now," said Norm Botsford, executive director of University Physicians Inc., the University of Arizona-affiliated doctors group now in the process of taking control of the hospital. "We've brought security and accountability to the highest possible level. We're overreacting in every way that's reasonable."

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive