Two surgeons, Dr. Kevin Day and Dr. Richard Havard, filed a $4.5 million whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against Samaritan Health Services.
They allege the health system's management practices led to sudden cancellations of surgeries and made it difficult for the surgeons to provide quality care. The surgeons claim that cost-saving measures, such as denying equipment requests and using substandard supplies, compromised patient care.
The lawsuit follows their termination, which resulted in the closure of their practice and left many breast cancer patients without necessary reconstructive surgery options.
According to the source:
Day and Havard complained that they were increasingly confined to cramped operating rooms for breast reconstruction operations, which "made little sense because mastectomy and reconstruction cases require two surgical teams working at the same time, each with its own equipment and personnel, and cramming all that staff and equipment into a small area increases the risk of contaminating the surgical field," the suit states.
The suit alleges Samaritan management ignored their complaints and denied their request for what they called necessary and relatively inexpensive surgical equipment that would significantly improve care. At the same time, Samaritan spent over $1 million on a DaVinci robotic surgery system that has barely been used because no operating room is large enough for it, the suit claims. https://www.thelundreport.org/content/surgeons-file-45-million-whistleblower-retaliation-suit-against-samaritan-health-services (Oct. 15, 2024).
Commentary
The story from the complainants is that new management came in; focused solely on profits; created exposure for patients; the good doctors reported the safety issues, and were terminated for reporting the risk.
We do not know the response from the management, but one can assume that it will go something like: new management was brought in because of inefficiencies or a new focus; new management pinpointed inefficiencies and/or opportunities; new management made changes to correct the inefficiencies, which included replacing the complainants or selecting new opportunities which did not include the complainants; the complainants were released; and no patients were hurt, just inconvenienced.
The success or failure of the litigation will not rest on whether patient safety was threatened or ignored, but rather were patient safety issues reported and were the two doctors were terminated because they reported the safety issues.
The defense will want the court and the jury to focus on the numbers and why new management had to make this tough decision - a decision they had the right to make. The complainants will take a more emotional path and focus on the harm to the doctors and patients from the "cold and calculated" decisions of management and will bring in affected patients as witnesses.
To limit emotional patient testimony like what was provided in the source article (e.g. patients that awoke from surgery to discover their doctor was fired), the defense will file a motion in limine to prevent the introduction at trial of all patient testimony as irrelevant. The argument is that such testimony has nothing to do with whether the complainants were terminated for reporting safety issues.
The complainants will oppose the motion and argue that the testimony of the patients will prove the existence of the patient safety issues that the doctors blew the whistle on, and were terminated for reporting.
The real reason for the patient testimony is to sway the jury that the decisions of the management were bad decisions, that the complainants were good doctors who cared for their patients, and that their former employer simply cared about profits.
If this type of emotional testimony is permitted, the defense may counter complaints about the doctors from other patients and staff, if such evidence exists.
If this matter goes to trial, success in front of a jury will likely be determined by the outcome of the motion to omit testimony from patients. Defendants will argue patient testimony would be unduly prejudicial and serve only to inflame the jury.
The final takeaway is that it is not illegal for management to make bad decisions. It is illegal to retaliate against those that report bad decisions that are connected to public safety. Had the defendants simply given time for the doctors to close out their practice without inconveniencing patients, they would have significantly decreased their risk by undercutting the emotional aspect of their decision.
