RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. Abigail Spanberger has signed legislation that will enhance penalties for failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect at a hospital.
The action came after a CBS 6 investigation revealed hospital staff at Henrico Doctors' Hospital failed to report non-accidental fractures in multiple babies to CPS within 24 hours.
Delegate Delores McQuinn introduced the bill in direct response to concerns raised during Henrico County's investigation into a nurse who broke the bones of babies in Henrico Doctors' Hospital's NICU.
The bill signing came as several of the babies injured in the NICU — now toddlers — were present for the occasion, meeting the governor for high fives.
Under current law, a first offense for failure to report carries a $500 fine, and subsequent failures could result in a $1,000 fine. The new law makes failure to report suspected child abuse at a hospital a Class 1 misdemeanor on the first offense, punishable by up to one year in jail. A second offense becomes a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in jail.
"Accountability is what we are expecting," McQuinn said.
Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor advocated for the bill after finding that the hospital failed to contact Child Protective Services on multiple occasions in 2023.
The hospital first discovered a baby with a non-accidental fracture on Aug. 5, 2023, but did not contact CPS. A second baby with a non-accidental fracture was found on Aug. 16, 2023 — and again, the hospital did not contact CPS. On Sept. 3, 2023, two more babies were found with non-accidental fractures, and still nobody from the hospital contacted CPS about the broken bones.
A heavily redacted DSS report, exclusively reported on by CBS 6's Melissa Hipolit, showed a NICU doctor told detectives she had asked her medical director if they should call CPS about one of the babies' injuries. She said he told her it would be taken to leadership and looked into by the NICU nursing director and the hospital's chief medical officer.
Watch: NICU doctor sounded alarm about babies with broken bones. Why didn’t hospital call CPS right away?
By Sept. 11, 2023, the Chief Medical Officer had participated in a Zoom meeting with a fourth radiologist. That radiologist told police he reviewed all the images of the injured babies and said he had never experienced anything like it in his 25 years. Still, nobody called CPS — until hospital CEO Ryan Jensen and Vice President of Quality Denise Weisberg called CPS on Sept. 21, 2023.
Taylor opted not to press charges against anyone for failure to report the suspected abuse, but said current law is weak — and that is why she pushed for change.
She added that "instead of simply pursuing the fine required under the law," she "used the case to force the hospital to implement critical child safety reforms, including installing cameras and requiring mandatory child abuse reporting training."
The hospital did implement those reforms after the 2023 incidents, but additional babies suffered broken bones in 2024 after the hospital brought NICU nurse Erin Strotman back to work.
Henrico Doctors' Hospital had placed Strotman on paid administrative leave in 2023 after the broken bones were discovered.
State inspectors found HDH did not review video from the cameras to audit or perform observations of care. Instead, they only reviewed the video to look at “hand hygiene” or if there was a complaint, according to an inspection report from the Virginia Department of Health.
On top of that, another employee said the daily physician head-to-toe assessments that were implemented after 2023 were not routinely completed after late July or August 2024, and there was no evidence that discontinuing this intervention was discussed or approved by the Medical Executive Committee or the Board of Trustees.
Strotman was allowed to return to the NICU on September 17, 2024, after the CPS investigation found that abuse had taken place, but the abuser could not be identified.
"Melissa, to be here in this moment, to know that there's — there's one small, you know, shiny light from what everybody recognizes was an absolutely terrible traumatic event...I can't put into words because it is one of the greatest honors of my life to be here today, to watch Governor Spanberger sign that bill," Taylor said.
Josh Moses, whose son was injured in the NICU, said the moment carries meaning beyond the families directly affected.
"It's a terrible situation that the kids went through, but without them, then there wouldn't be any changes being made, because, as the system was, nobody saw it as broken at the time, so now it's kind of brought it to light," Moses said.
Moses said the stakes are too high for anything less than the highest standard of care.
"You gotta take care of the little ones really. I mean, the little kids are defenseless, like they can't do things for themselves. So realistically, in my opinion, you gotta be held to a higher standard," Moses said.
Erin Strotman, the former NICU nurse found guilty of hurting the babies, will be sentenced June 5. She is facing up to three years behind bars.
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