JoNel Aleccia

A North Idaho child welfare supervisor who accidentally left an expletive-laden message on the phone of a parent is back at work, against the wishes of state Sen. Mike Jorgenson. Randy Geib, a 34-year veteran with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, was allowed to return after an investigation. Agency officials wouldn't say Wednesday whether he was disciplined, citing personnel rules.

Washington officials vowed Tuesday to oppose surprise federal rules aimed at limiting expansion of the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, a move that would affect about 10,000 children. Doug Porter, an official with the Department of Social and Health Services, questioned not only the effect of new Bush administration rules, which would make it harder to insure all but the state's lowest-income children, but also the way the change was announced last week.

Nurses at Bonner General Hospital in Sandpoint have filed a national labor board complaint alleging that hospital officials have failed to fairly negotiate terms of a first-ever union contract. Representatives for more than 110 nurses who voted last year to join the Teamsters Union Local 690 have spent nearly a year working out contract terms. However, their complaint filed this month with the National Labor Relations Board contends that hospital officials have refused to bargain in good faith, in part by failing to set amenable times and dates for negotiation.

An outpatient veterans clinic in North Idaho could open by late 2008 – but only if federal officials can find a suitable site for the 20,000-square-foot center. So far, however, no good options have emerged for the clinic aimed at making medical services more accessible for about 7,000 veterans a year in North Idaho and Western Montana.

The widow of a Spokane doctor is suing Empire Health Services for negligence and wrongful death three years after she says her ill and confused husband walked out of Deaconess Medical Center and collapsed in the street. Carol Oeljen alleges that hospital staff failed to monitor Dr. Carl Oeljen, a 62-year-old orthopedic surgeon who had worked at Deaconess, and failed to prevent him from wandering out of the hospital on Aug. 13, 2004.

A Spokane laboratory has notified 2,000 clients at three Washington hospitals – including Sacred Heart Medical Center – that private information about their medical tests was inadvertently mailed to the wrong addresses. Officials from Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories confirmed Wednesday that a glitch in a computer program sent statements to the wrong addresses of clients billed through Providence Health and Services hospitals in Everett, Centralia and Spokane.

Smoking rates dropped again in Washington and Idaho in 2006, continuing a gradual, steady decline in the number of adults who light up, state and national surveys showed. In Washington, the rate has fallen to a new low of 17 percent, while in Idaho, the percentage of smokers declined to 16.8 percent, according to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The North Idaho child welfare supervisor who accidentally left an obscene message on a client's phone has been placed on paid administrative leave. Randy Geib will be off indefinitely while supervisors conduct an inquiry into the July 19 incident, said Tom Shanahan, a spokesman for the agency. He'll continue to draw his monthly salary of $6,371, according to state employment records.

A backward X-ray and a misidentified spinal surgery site contributed to Sacred Heart Medical Center surgeons operating on the wrong body parts twice last spring. The Spokane hospital logged mistaken surgeries on March 5 and May 7, according to records of adverse events reported to the state Department of Health.

A veteran supervisor for North Idaho's child protective services program is facing possible discipline – and an Idaho Senate investigation – after inadvertently leaving an obscene, insulting message on the phone of a parent whose child had been removed by the agency. Randy Geib, program manager for the Idaho Health and Welfare Department's five northern counties, thought he'd hung up after leaving a message July 19 for Bryan Sturdy, of Coeur d'Alene.

Two members of the Spokane Regional Health District board said Thursday they want to cut ties with Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest – including a contract that provides breast and cervical cancer screenings to low-income women – because they object to that agency performing abortions. "I have to object to the underwriting of the killing of unborn babies," said Dr. Charles Wolfe, an appointed board member, who opposed a $3,000 voucher payment to Planned Parenthood. "I will continue to be opposed to that until we get rid of that contract."

Replacing the health officer they fired last fall is taking longer and costing more than some Spokane Regional Health District officials expected. In the end, it could take nearly a year and cost more than $200,000 to find a successor to Dr. Kim Thorburn at a time when the health district's $23 million budget is, by all accounts, tight.

Two days after a fuel truck explosion sent plumes of choking smoke into the Spokane sky and oil into the city's river, regional agencies charged with protecting air, water and public health were still coordinating basic communication. Confusion has lingered since Monday over who should answer questions about pollution and safety, with agencies directing inquiries to each other – or not responding at all.

Spokane County Jail officials were seeking a substitute Thursday for up to 12,000 tubes of potentially poisoned toothpaste from China after an urgent recall by a Seattle-area distributor. As late as Wednesday, however, inmates still were being given 2.75-ounce tubes of AmerFresh brand toothpaste that may have been tainted with diethylene glycol (DEG), according to a warning from Amercare Products Inc. of Woodinville, Wash.

It would be funny if it weren't so serious: The first customer to sign up for Northwest MedStar's new air ambulance membership service was also the first to use it. But Bob Wisener's wife, Denise, isn't joking about any frequent flier plan.

A Spokane County jail supervisor said Thursday she won't submit a request that would allow an inmate to authorize the release of a list of people who've visited him. Kay Donder, who's in charge of jail records, said she didn't want to "get in the middle" of a debate about whether the visitor logs are public.