Assembly hears bills concerning doctors’ issues

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, March 24, 2005 | 11:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Two Nevada residents fought back tears Wednesday as they remembered family members who died while undergoing routine outpatient procedures in doctor offices.

They argued on behalf of Assembly Bill 120, which would require doctor offices and surgical centers to report problems that occur during office surgical procedures.

The Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee also heard Assembly Bill 280, which would require criminal background checks on Nevada doctors.

Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt, D-Henderson, said she sponsored the bill to monitor in-office surgeries because doctors are finding it increasingly cost- effective to do more minor surgeries in their offices.

But the state has no way of knowing when something goes wrong, and offices don't always have the most up-to-date equipment, she said.

"The patient is at a much greater risk of injury or death," she said.

Neena Laxalt recounted the story of her aunt, who passed away after she went to a doctor because she felt a lump in her throat.

The doctor initiated a procedure and administered too much anesthesia, forcing her 63-year-old aunt into respiratory failure, Laxalt said. The woman died several days later.

"AB 120 is the least of what I would like to see as justice for those of us who have lost," said Laxalt, who is a lobbyist but was speaking on behalf of herself.

Physicians groups argued that doctors perform thousands of procedures in Nevada and can't keep track of them all.

But Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, the chairwoman of the committee, pointed out that the reports they would give to the Board of Medical Examiners and the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine would focus mostly on "sentinal events" that include injuries or death.

Doctors are turning to in-office procedures partly because they realize more insurance money for providing the facilities and the anesthesia, several experts testified Wednesday.

About 25 percent of all surgeries in the country are now done in offices, and as many as 35 percent could be office-based within two or three years, said Frederick Ernst, an anesthesiologist from Alabama who testified as an expert on the issue.

Another bill to complete background checks of physicians in the state, dubbed the Patient Protection Act, comes partly in response to the arrest of pediatrician David Glenn Evans, who is charged with 61 felonies relating to child abuse.

Evans didn't have a criminal record, but the case made the bill's sponsor, Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, think about how vulnerable patients in Nevada are.

Some doctor groups argued that only doctors seeking a new license in Nevada should have to submit to fingerprinting, and that doctors with minor trespasses in their past should be allowed to continue practicing.

The bill would deny licenses to physicians with a record of murder, voluntary manslaughter, a felony involving the use of a firearm or other deadly weapon, sexual assault, child abuse or neglect, or a violation of laws regulating controlled substances.