TAMPA, FL -- It was early June at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Tampa.
"This meeting will come to order."
While there were no cameras at the Florida Board of Nursing meeting, the hearing was recorded.
Waiting to have their cases heard were dozens of applicants hoping to become nurses for the first time or applying to have their license restored.
"The charge you have there is what, assault on a Police Officer, Domestic violence?"
Among those getting their licenses and now possibly working at a hospital or a nursing facility near you... felons... convicted of crimes like grand theft and dealing drugs.
"You no longer sell hydrocodone or cocaine?"
"Absolutely," the applicant answers.
"Do you use them?"
"No ma'am no not anymore."
"All in favor? Unanimous grant!"
Another case comes up. This time: attempted murderer.
"It was second degree attempted murder because I stabbed him 3-4 times."
"You've been granted. THANK YOU!"
Watching in the audience that day were Joy Abear and her husband Joe. They were more than just a little bit astonished by who was getting their licenses and the crimes they committed.
"I was kind of sitting in my seat squirming!" Joy said. "There was burglary. There was battery. There was concealed weapons charges."
Abear was there trying to get her license back as well. However, unlike some of the others in the room, her license had not been surrendered because she committed a crime.
"I was actually suffering from Multiple Sclerosis," she says.
She surrendered her license because she was sick and couldn't keep up with the required continuing certification process.
As for the felons, Joy Abear and her husband saw a number of them getting approved for nursing licenses that day.
The Florida Department of Health insists its process of considering applicants is rigorous.
In a statement to ABC Action News, the state says "It's highly unlikely, absent extraordinary extenuating circumstances, that the Board of Nursing would ever grant a license to someone who had been a violent offender."
But what about the guy who spent 66 months in prison?
"You assaulted someone and attempted murder? Yes, well, it was in the heat of battle," he said at his hearing.
It turns out within days of the hearing, the Florida legislature passed a new law that makes it tougher for SOME FELONS to get their nurses licenses or get them back. But we've discovered that new law doesn't affect all convicted felons, including felons convicted of violent crime.
State Representative Kevin Ambler lead the fight in the legislature to stop criminals guilty of Medicaid fraud and drug convictions from getting their nursing licenses back for a minimum of 15 years.
"The concern in writing the Medicaid Fraud Bill was these recidivist offenders are going through a revolving door in the system there is so much money that can be made off the fraud that's occurring," Ambler says.
"What you have here is a new law that excludes, by in large, non-violent offenders now excluded from nursing again?" we asked.
"Right," Ambler said.
"But violent offenders some with heinous crimes could still get their license?"
"That's absolutely correct," he continued.
Ambler points out its part of our system of justice to have a nursing board consider an individuals facts and circumstances instead of a blanket law that no felon can ever hold a license.
Of the 50 nurses seeking to have their licenses restored at that June hearing, The Board of Nursing granted at least 29 of the requests.
But later, when the board took up the case of Joy Abear who voluntarily gave up her license while she was sick.
"She just banged down the gavel and the answer was no," Abear said.
The vote was 11-1 against Abear. Even though she has a spotless 30 year record as a nurse, the board's position was since Abear voluntarily turned in her license while she was sick, just out of the hospital and unable to work, the decision is irrevocable.
"I was absolutely mortified. I can't describe the emotions that welled up inside of me because of everything else I've seen, she said."
Representative Ambler has talked to the department of health on Joy Abear's behalf and is working on an approach that could lead to re-instatement of her license.
