23 June 2006

Security Issues at Children's: I Hate To Say "I Told You So"

It's this simple. Note what happened in January 2006:

Apparently disturbed that a hard copy of this blog was found lying around somewhere in the Hospital, they wasted no time in dispatching Mr. Jim Sawyer, Director of Security and Transportation, to find me and ask for “2 minutes of my time”.

Point: The Hospital sent the top security executive to my daughter's room at 7am to discuss this blog.

And then note what happened today, according to the Seattle P-I:

Her son, Riley Rogers, is suffering from an illness and needs state-ordered emergency medical care. Authorities believe she took him from Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. Dr. Richard Molteni, medical direct (SIC) at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, said that in light of the custody battle over Riley, hospital staff watched the baby's room more closely than usual. Staff checked on Riley at 4:30 a.m. and again at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday. Hospital officials believe Carlsen carried Riley out of the hospital around 6 a.m. Thursday in a small bag after telling staff she was going for coffee.

Point: Apparently the Director of Security, who should have been aware of this imminent security problem, was less attentive to this critical issue than he was the appearance of a printout of this blog.

Parents, how many more incidents like this will it take until we collectively require a top management change at our children's hospital? Where is the CEO, Tom Hansen, in this crisis - out fundraising for his research? Hopefully he is researching security methods to prevent children from being abducted from this hospital and reallocating his Security Director's time from concerns about blogs to concerns about kidnapping.