NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Nurses in Nashville are hoping to put a new bill on the books that would add another layer of protection against registered sex offenders.
“We face anything from any gross sexual comments, people have been threatened, and unfortunately, they have been trapped in a room where the patient has been a wall between the door and the nurse themselves, so it’s scary,” said nurse Ciearria. She asked News 2, not to reveal where she works but says sexual harassment has become a constant.
We asked her what she endures the most, Ciearria explained, “comments, sexual comments, and people who come in and they are able to do things for themselves […] and not anything basic, but regarding to any sexual parts and stuff like that.”
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Now, she along with others are pushing for change on a state level. The hope is to have legislators take up a bill that would require sex offenders to present their offender identification card once inside the hospital.
“You would go register at the front desk, like any other patient, the only difference is that you would hand them your sexual offender identification card, and let them know,” explained Carissa Kohne, co-writer of the bill.
Kohne pointed to an incident back in 2020 where a registered sex offender was arrested after assaulting his nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The nurse told police she was later adjusting the 46-year-old’s pillow when he grabbed her breast. She said she told him to stop, but he did it again.
Carissa explained if the bill passes, it wouldn’t stall medical services being given to patients. Instead, she explained that at the time a patient would give their name either upon entering the hospital or once conscious, then they would disclose their sex offender card information.
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I notice how she carefully did not claim that it was registrants who were doing all the harassing. Want to bet that most are not registrants, so the Nazi ID card would have no effect on those?
My wife was a CNA and she was sexually harassed by the old men constantly, but she understood that their decline in mental health was largely to blame. I think that any policy that targets registrants only misunderstands the issue and won’t stop this kind of behavior from happening. Having strong safety protocols for women who work with patients would better solve the problem, and this is the responsibility of the hospital or facility, not lawmakers.
This story reminds me of that lame article last week of Kate Moss claiming she “didn’t feel safe” around Mark Wahlberg (over twenty years ago btw) while doing a clothing commercial. What in the actual.. f
This damsel in distress syndrome is just a ploy for attention.
So once again, we’re all punished, hated and scapegoated for the actions of a few. Everyone that this label is forced upon is getting generalized and singled-out daily! And I don’t see a course correction on any of this because of the current outrage and hate culture that has been normalized.
The lawmakers will continue to trot out the “public safety” and “scary people” argument as justification till kingdom come unless we call them on their fear and hate mongering BS.
Was this nurse assaulted by a registrant? Where can we read the documentation of the “many stories about others that this has happened to?” that she claims. Were they all assaulted by registrants? This seems highly unlikely.
TN is one of the states that requires an identifier on driver’s licenses so the fact that a patient is a registrant is available to the hospital when a patient registers at the hospital.
This nurse’s complaints seem to run the gambit from questionable attacks by registrants to general sexual harassment by all patients.
Some patients are obnoxious and think they can get away with being touchy, feely with nurses or other hospital personnel because that person is simply a jerk . Sometimes patients react inappropriateyl, sometimes even sexually inappropriately in hospital settings because of their illness, anxiety, or even due to a side effect of medications.
No hospital personnel should be placed in danger by a patient, but unfortunately, it happens. The danger can be any patient, not necessarily a registrant.
While this nurse’s idea for some kind of safety legislation may be well meant, she is misguided in those she is directing it towards, and perhaps those registrants who simply mind their own business but who would be negatively affected by this bill, should it ever pass, should sue her for the sexual harassment it will cause them.
It’s time to stop allowing bills like this that stigmatize an entire population to be passed.
The nurse doesn’t know if those who harass her are registrants, but it’s only her feelings that gets sated by forcing registrants to show their SO cards at the front desk. Seems very much like labelling the Jews in WW2.
Also, showing the SO cards could easily put the registrant in an already compromised situation to where the registrant can be exploited or done more harm.
Biggest takeaway from this is why didn’t the nurse report this behavior to be taken care of at court? That venue already exists. Anyone can harass, but why discriminate on people who already served their time?
What good is the bill’s protection for these nurses if the offending patient wasn’t a Registrant? Do they honestly believe that ALL SEXUAL HARRASMENT comes from Registrants?
The ONLY people that benefit from passing this bill are the POLITICIANS who will use it to get re-elected. Those dumb nurses were handed a crock of sh!t – a stupid security blanket that offers NO PROTECTION – because they put their faith on the Registry.
By the big smile on her face you can tell its serious what does the patient say you know two sides to a story
So, non-sex offenders do not do these things? I bet EVERY one of the people who did these supposed things were not registrants. This is just a means to out registrants at the hospital so the nurses and doctors know who to give substandard medical help to or provide unneeded dangerous treatments to in hopes it kills them.
What about nurses who harass or abuse patients? Don’t patients need protection?
Tennessee is a right to die state they don’t care about patients anyway. This is some crazy white supremacists nurse that has deep racist roots . That’s the real problem when she goes home and her hood wearing husband rant’s on race and people with certain crimes in their past . And we all know how those white supremacists are about sex offenders. So she looks good in the small group of evil people she represents. But no matter what this is a total HIPPA violation and I would record and have witnesses with me every time I dealt with a doctor or nurse. Totally against anything that is right in medicine and nursing.
This very well could delay medical treatment for some people, but not in the way the bill’s co-author assumes.
Having to declare one’s status as a registered sex offender whenever one enters a hospital or clinic very well could cause some people to not seek medical care — which very well could lead to an increase in deaths from totally preventable or manageable diseases amongst the registered population in Tennessee.
A lot of y’all don’t read the whole article but you start to rant. It said a nurse was assaulted my a a registered sex offender by a 2020 in the hospital.
We need consistent messaging in this. This needs to be known as the “Tennessee nurses love murderers and child beaters” bill, since they are explicitly excluded from any kind of reporting requirements.
Daam after people go through a lifetime of punishment, shame and banishment because of the registry when they get committed to a hospital they have to worry about the nurses abusing them now.
I’m not surprise we’re talking about a government that legally almost wiped out a whole race of people and enslaved another.
And I thought I couldn’t spell Nurses Aid. Seems this registry has a lot of twists and turns even in TN. Talk about hating Nurses getting banged up or bandaged up in sex litigation by this registry. Guess women want justice also or who hates a nurse worse than a of some sue-do rapist in progress. Maybe its time to take a breather for a second. Sure I’m like Will Allen comment but much of this registry is over the coo-coo’s nest in justice.. Maybe Ms. Ratchet can explain this justice of good bad and ugly without all the monitoring .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onm5gjgL97Y
I know MN has a requirement for PFRs to notify but I believe it’s only if admitted. I wonder how it’s gone there.
I know many nurses and most have been periodically assaulted (non sexually) by patients. It seems to me that being smacked or punched by a patient is a much more serious problem in healthcare than the sexual assault type. While I have heard of patients trying to do inappropriate touching (usually subtle to make it seem unintentional) I know of none of over a dozen nurses I know who have been put into a situation where it would be a patient doing something beyond that. Such behavior by a patient crosses a line but it’s not so serious of a situation as these nurses in the article are trying to make it seem. Some of these issues come with the territory of working in direct contact jobs with other people. If you can’t handle that, you need a different job, not some useless information that tells you nothing about which patients are likely to assault you sexually. In fact, being given notice of PFRs probably keeps the nurse less safe as they will keep their guard down on other patients who aren’t PFR but much more dangerous.
compiled speech
1. It was easy to find Ciearria Cookson on Facebook as well as her job at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Seems pointless to try to hide your identity when you are easy to find.
2. The case Ciearria pointed out was dismissed by nolle prosequi. I guess she did not get the memo.
3. Clarissa Kohne works for a law firm that handles medical malpractice suits. How ironic.
4. TN uses the numbers 88 to mark state IDs. If you aren’t aware of this, 88 is code for Heil Hitler. Hitler marked Jewish passports. I don’t believe in coincidences.
Now you wonder why I sent that little clip from One flew over the Coccocos Nest. Wonder if little Ricky was was shell produced from a cabbage patch. Where have all the morals went or code of conduct today even with authorities.
I sent a lengthy email to my state senator encouraging her to oppose this legislation should such a bill ever be sponsored. I pointed out the grave danger this needlessly subjects registrants who have already paid for their crimes to. I think our side will be devoutly ignored as always, but as a volunteer TN contact for NARSOL, I’m going to do all I can to fight this.
Sent the following to the TV station that reported this:
To Whom it May Concern:
Regarding the above cited story, I noticed that the reporter didn’t ask if nurses were already checking the sex offender registry when individuals were admitted. If so, one should question the purported necessity for such a law. If not, why not? Are most other nurses simply not as concerned as Carrisa Kohne would have us believe, or are they being actively prevented from doing so?
Second, what exactly is stopping nurses from taking whatever precautions they feel necessary when treating sex offender registrants from taking those same precautions with all patients?
Third, in response to Kohne’s claim that treatment would be no different, I would think a fair and impartial reporter would ask if there were provisions in the proposal to ensure that and again, if not, why not?
And finally, it would make for a more balanced story to talk to sex offender registrants who have recieved medical care since becoming registrants. You’ll hear stories of refusal to treat or admit, ignored summons, unlubricated catheters, and other Nurse Ratchet-like activity that would get any of them terminated immediately if the patient were not registered.
It’s been well documented that sex offender registrants have the lowest recidivism rates of all criminal classes except murder, public opinion to the contrary. Accordingly, I can’t help but wonder if this story would have been portrayed differently if the proposed law targeted drug offenders (whose recidivism is over five times that of sex offenders).
I suggest everyone start writing to these reporters and news organizations, if they’re not doing so already.
this is stupid , the issue at hand has nothing to do with FTR’s , has to do with bad manners of people that have the mind of a child , and some times medical folks are just make stuff up cause they have an issue with patient , I being a FTR am very careful about what I say to potential button pushers , One Clinic office I was going to was real nice except for one snarky nurse , and one day when they had me sitting in this room waiting , I heard the snarky nurse say to someone else , Look the guy in room 5 is a FTR “FORCED TO REGISER” , from that time on I was treated like crap , hard to get my meds , one time we called for 2 weeks to make an appointment , so we finely went down to make the appointment in person and we were standing in line about 6 or 10 back , we could see the snarky nurse standing behind the intake people looking at her phone , then she looked up and seen us waiting in line , her eyes got big and she took off out of sight , and while we were standing there she called us to make an appointment , I snapped and went to the front and started yelling lol I WANT TO SEE WHO IS IN CHARGE ! this guy came out and he told me to come in back , and the whole time all he did was make BS excuses for this nurses actions , so I end up going to 2 other clinics owned by the same company , everything would be cool for a few months , and it would start all over again , even seen the same snarky nurse at one of them , finely got to digging around for a new clinic they were not affillated with last month , so far they are on top of their game and much nicer , But all the same this bill they are trying to pass in TENN is wrong , all of the character traits they are describing could be a large number of illness’s , might even be Ernest from the Any Griffith show , I am sure it is not FTR’s , any one can and do have some kind of issue , can’t put everything on FTR’s
All empirical evidence suggests that Aprox. 98% of all sexual offences are committed by people with no previous conviction, or arrest for a sexual offence. Why enact safety procedures that would, at best, shield these nurses from 2% of all instances, instead of protocols that shield against all?
Why is 2% better than 100%?
Is it typical of the medical profession to ignore empirical data in favor of a hunch?
We can be assured that this will at no time, and in no way, ever discourage a PFR from seeking medical attention? Not even for preventative care, so critical to maintenance of health? It was my understanding that the medical profession has been engaged in long, and consorted effort to encourage all to seek medical attention and advice. Key to this effort is to ensure that all seeking medical attention will be treated fairly and equally. Is this not a contradiction of this decades long effort? Does this not require a PFR to be treated differently, and by definition unequally?
Will this not create delays in the treatment of a PFR? These enhanced safety measures enacted only for the visitation of a PFR seeking medical attention will always be instantaneously enacted with no delays of any kind ever? If not, could these delays not jeopardize the health of the PFR seeking attention? Would these delays not also cause a delay to others, who would have to wait additional time for the enhanced safety measures to be enacted, thus prolonging the total time spent with the PFR, causing a delay to all? Would it not be wiser to avoid these delays simply by creating better safety measures that are applied in all circumstances, and by doing so better shield nurses and others in all circumstances? Why cause delay for such limited safety enhancement?
If the resources for the enhanced safety measures are not immediately available at the moment they are needed, what happens? They are foregone for this visitation? The PFR treatment is delayed until they become available, assured that this will never exacerbate any issue the PFR is experiencing? All others will simply have to wait until the enhanced measures are available, enacted, and the attending professional has completed their efforts with the PFR and is ready for their next patient? Would it not be better to simply have permanent, in place procedures that are used for all? Better protection with no delays?
I’m not sure of how many people will even come across this, considering how much long after the article came out and the last comment looks to have been September. Already hospitals have started to ask for your driver’s license to they can scan it into their system. I took my wife to have a simple outpatient surgery and when she checked in at the front desk they asked if I would be waiting on her, and when I nodded yes, they asked for my ID. They scanned it and when the information came back, the guy behind the counter started stammering and said, “Sir, if you’re planning on sitting with your wife, I’m going to have to call security for them to come talk with you.” I was so embarrassed, and outraged, I was going to be in a waiting room for my wife. In plain view of ALL to see. I said, “Nevermind” and called my wife’s mother (who luckily had rode with us) to come sit with her. I have to admit that, that specific hospital did see a lot of children, I felt probably more than ever that my label was a punishment. If it turns into that for me to be seen at the Emergency Room I have to announce that I’m a Sex Offender because I am having appendicitis… LET’EM! I can promise you that I will be one of the first to be filing suit against Tennessee that the registration has reached a point of being punitive than civil when it interrupts my ability to seek Healthcare without the fear of discrimination of someone thinking I’m going to be a certain way because of a label that has been so washed of relevance that it is strictly used for fear mongering. If this turns into a bill I don’t see it getting past the initial stages, because of the few Sex Offenders they’ve recently had to release from the registration for it being punitive.