New legislation promises increased safety for hospital personnel.
Texas lawmakers have filed legislation that would require hospitals to be notified if parolees visit hospitals.
House Bill 3457 would require anyone on parole for a violent crime or wearing an ankle monitor who wants to visit a hospital campus to verify the time, date, and purpose of their visit and have this cleared with their parole officer before the visit.
Parole officers would then be required to notify the hospital or local police of the visit.
Exemptions would be given in the case of necessary emergency medical services.
The bill is also known as the Pokuaa-Flowers Act, named so after Jacqueline Pokuaa and Katie Flowers, the two hospital employees who were shot and killed at Methodist Dallas Medical Center in October.
Parolee Nestor Hernandez was later indicted on two charges of murder in the death of Pokuaa and Flowers. He had come to the hospital to visit his girlfriend, who had given birth to their child one day before.
“Methodist Hospital was not notified that a violent criminal who had violated his parole 50 different times and was on parole for aggravated assault would be entering their hospital,” said State Representative Rafael AnchÃa, author of this new bill, according to FOX 4 News.
Representative Abel Herrero, chair of the House Corrections Committee, expressed concern over the security during a hearing in the state capitol, particularly how a parole officer would know that their parolee intended to visit a hospital.
AnchÃa responded that it would be the parolee’s duty to inform his parole officer ahead of time and that some cases could simply be addressed by a parolee’s ankle monitor.
Other hospitals have already begun to voice their support for this bill.
“We feel this bill will help us to enhance our safety measures,” said Katherine Yoder, vice president of government at Parkland Health Systems, according to FOX 4 News. “If we get that notice, we think this will help in protecting our patients and our employees [with] little harm or little effect in terms of individual visiting. They won’t even know it.”
WTH? let me get this straight. The Texas legislature wants to pass a law because the Texas Court system completely failed to incarcerate a violent criminal who violated parole 50 times.
I think that the legislature needs to get real and make some laws that mandate the revocation of parole long before 50 violations! This law is like attacking legal gun owners for the actions of criminals with unlawful guns. It is absurd on its face and will do nothing but raise costs for everyone. It does nothing to protect anyone.
Sending someone back to prison on a mandate and even adding charges and time makes sense. This does not. It will just be another administrative expense and require the addition of hundreds of new government employees. IT IS STUPID.