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Former hospital therapist pleads guilty to molesting children

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 18, 2007

A former respiratory therapist at the Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego pleaded guilty June 12 to molesting five disabled children who were patients under his care and sharing sexually explicit pictures of others online with fellow computer users, reported The North County Times.

The therapist, Wayne Albert Bleyle, 55, will be sentenced next month to more than 45 years in state prison according to a plea agreement. The prosecutor in the case told the newspaper that Bleyle admitted molesting four named victims and one girl who could not be identified, all between the ages of 10 and 13. Two of the children have since died. She said the children were all "medically fragile, brain-damaged, and the most vulnerable victims you could ever imagine in a case like this."

The hospital has implemented new procedures to help prevent another situation like Bleyle's, spokesman Ben Metcalf told the newspaper. "This was a total shock to the hospital," he said.

Bleyle used his cell phone camera to take pornographic pictures of some of the victims. Employees must now put their cell phones in lockers and visitors are encouraged to step outside while using their phones. Another new policy requires two people to be in a room while a child is being examined. New privacy curtains allow people to look over the top to see what's going on, Metcalf added.

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