Seton coming around on
DWI blood draws
Hospitals administrators working with
prosecutors

Updated: Friday, 24 Jul 2009, 11:02 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 24 Jul 2009, 9:06 PM CDT

Erin Cargile
BURNET COUNTY (KXAN) - Seton Family of Hospitals , the largest healthcare system in Central Texas, could soon be opening their doors to blood draw warrants, even when DWI suspects refuse.

Details.

[Note that hospitals received additional protection from liability this last session. That should make it easier to form a good relationship with hospitals. But, an even better practice is to convince your sheriff to train phlebotomists for use at the jail.]

Most if not all county jails employ nurses. Why pay the expense of training someone to be a phlebotomist?

Nurse may not be on duty 24 hours. Phlebotomist is cheaper. Just an option.

We encountered that when I went to work in Johnson County in 1996. My elected County Attorney paid the on call nurse's overtime to do blood draws. Problem solved

"There are still details to work out, including who will pay for nurses� time to testify in court when they are drawn into DWI cases. Burnet County is confident they'll reach a solution soon."

Ah yes, now we get down to the lick log. It's always about the Benjamins, isn't it?

Fortunately, high BAC results = pleas of guilty = no testimony needed. Problem solved!

Shannon, I agree trial time will significantly decrease, but my guess is that suppression hearings will be urged REGULARLY knowing that it's a money issue to get the witnesses to court, and a debate about who will pay, and that the hospital may not put the right names on things, etc. because they are not used to getting called into testify (that happened to me in past, I couldn't figure out who actually drew the darn blood). And there will probably be many hearings on the probable cause issue--at least until it all gets settled down again.

That's still better than having no evidence of intoxication. Of course, you can always make a plea bargain contingent on the defendant waiving any right to pretrial hearings on the admissibility of evidence, including blood testing.

So, for those that challenge, put them to trial. That way, we all get a full, fair hearing and punishment.

The real issue is the charge for the draw. They want to charge law enforcement $150 per draw. There is no current budget for that. So we are trying to decide how to handle that.

Katherine McAnally

Wow, at that price, agencies could pay a full time nurse to do the draws--especially in busy areas.

I guess some of that could be recouped if you get a plea--like DPS sends those restitution request sheets. But no guarantees of recovery of that money so budgets would still have to cover it up front.

Seems like it would be nice to strike some kind of trade in kind--like the local agencies switch off and donate an on shift officer at the ER for security and the ER makes available a nurse when needed, or something like that.