Minn. report: Addicted nurses keep licenses

Twelve Minnesota nurses who since 2010 are licensed to practice despite having either stolen narcotics on the job, fraudulently obtained prescriptions, or practiced while impaired by drugs or alcohol, a Star Tribune examination of more than 1,000 Minnesota Board of Nursing disciplinary records has found. Nearly all of those nurses have kept their licenses by taking part in a state program created to protect the public from health professionals who are alcoholics or drug addicts. Reports of Minnesota healthcare professionals who have diverted—the industry’s term for drug theft—jumped 325 percent from 2006 to 2010, the most recent data available from the Drug Enforcement Administration and state health department.