Both Governor Perdue and I pledged transparency at the beginning of this administration. Today, we learned of three incidents which have occurred at Central Regional Hospital involving patient care in the last few weeks.

On Feb. 1, a patient was assaulted by a health care technician at the CRH Raleigh campus. This incident was not reported to hospital administrators until an anonymous complaint was received by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) inspectors.

I have ordered that appropriate disciplinary action be taken with all employees involved in this incident as quickly as is permissible under state law. In addition, we have reported this incident to law enforcement, and an investigation is under way.

The other two incidents involved a juvenile patient on the Butner campus…