Public commenters tell BRN committee diversion program harmed them; request review of old Breeze/Nursys records

SACRAMENTO — During public comment at the California Board of Registered Nursing’s Nurse Practice Committee meeting on Jan. 22, speakers described personal harm from a diversion program contractor and asked the board to address longstanding online records that commenters say continue to block employment and education opportunities.

One commenter, Clifford Ray Suda, said participation in a diversion program administered by MAXIMUS left him “financially, physically, and emotionally depleted” after repeated denials and limited contact with program staff. Suda said he had stopped seeking nursing work because of the program’s requirements and a pattern of what he described as interrogations and inadequate support.

“I am financially, physically, and emotionally depleted from having to participate in a program that makes no rational sense and goes against my core beliefs,” Suda said during the public-comment period. He urged the board to consider the diversion participant experience when Enforcement and Investigations items are heard by the appropriate committee.

Another commenter using the display name Paradise requested the committee place an item on a future agenda to apply a current 2020 BRN standard — which exempts dismissed, expunged, or older misdemeanor convictions from discipline — retroactively to older cases whose records remain accessible on Breeze and Nursys. Paradise said some charges were 20 years old and that those public records continued to impede education and employment.

Committee staff and the moderator reminded speakers that enforcement matters and diversion-program concerns fall under the Enforcement, Intervention and Investigation Committee and asked that those comments be held for that committee’s public-comment period. No formal committee action was taken on these public comments during the Nurse Practice Committee meeting.