There is a man in New Hampshire, name of David Ridley, who makes videos which I find on YouTube. He’s one of the bravest people I’ve seen in a while.

What Ridley does is this: He defends his rights. He defends his right to videotape police activity, he defends his right not to cooperate more than required by law, he defends his right to open carry a firearm.

What he’s really defending is his franchise. His free agency.

We concede all sorts of power to the government, which is only too happy to take things from us. Most of us pay grudging respect to this reality. People like Ridley look for the line and make sure they stand right up against it, to defend it from further encroachment and to make the point that we’d like some of our freedoms back.

Some of Ridley’s videos demonstrate impressive courage. It can’t be easy to refuse to produce identification or to give your date of birth. It can’t be easy to answer questions with questions. It can’t be easy knowing that at any moment the police could simply take you into custody and destroy the evidence.

Ridley doesn’t come across as a glory hound nor as a loonie; he’s not exactly mainstream, and that’s a good thing. Different is good. It reminds us, or attempts to, that we don’t have to settle for assigned roles. It’s good to be reminded of that from time to time.

Believe it or not, there exists a place called Kermit, Texas, hard by the corner of New Mexico out in west Texas. It’s a small city, the county seat, surrounded by prairie and long roads. It’s hard to get doctors and surgeons to come out to Kermit. They like to keep the ones they get.

But what to do when the doctor is incompetent? That’s what two nurses had to decide. They’d seen the doctor use questionable methods and perform unapproved procedures.

The doctor is Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., the nurses are Vickilyn Galle and Anne Mitchell and the hospital is Winkler County Memorial Hospital. The nurses had a combined 47 years of service at the hospital when they were terminated without explanation, after a police investigation revealed that they had reported to the Texas Department of State Health Services some of the problems they had observed with Dr. Arafiles. The nurses had previously reported the doctor to the hospital administration, which had not yet taken action on those reports. The nurses decided to take the next step because, they pointed out, the doctor was still practicing and thus patients were still at risk.

Dr. Arafiles countered by denying the charges and instead accusing the nurses of a personal vendetta. This led to a raid on their computers and then to a charge against Nurse Mitchell for misuse of public indormation. A felony.

Nurse Galle was not charged.

The Winkler county sheriff is a close personal friend of the doctor.

The prosecutor insists he can make the charge stick. The case is headed to court, and there are other actions pending as well. The lawyer for the nurses has taken an aggressive posture toward the county, suing them for vindictive prosecution.

Nurse Mitchell faces ten years in prison if she’s found guilty. Neither nurse has been able to find work. They were, by all accounts, fine nurses. They acted in, they assert, the manner their professional ethics and state law require.

The prosecution says it can prove a vendetta. I say that the case had better be slam dunk. They need to explain why the nurses went to the hospital first if their intent was to make things up. Wouldn’t the hospital know if these charges had any basis in fact? The prosecution will have to demonstrate that the information provided by the nurses was erroneous, and then they have to prove that the errors were intentional. If the nurses’ allegations are substantially true and corroborated, how can the doctor be defamed with facts?

Only if the nurses broke procedure would that be possible. They did not. They reported him privately to the state board. That it has come into the open is not their doing nor their fault.

What this case is sure to do is chill any thoughts any other medical service provider may have about reporting something which they think may be a problem. When the incentive is to keep your mouth shut or face a felony charge, a lengthy, expensive trial, loss of your job and ability to obtain another one, and ten years in state prison if convicted…

Would you stand up to that much authority?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.