Nurse who survived Ebola is suing the hospital

allnurses Guide · Mar 6, 2015

Texas Health Resources was named in the Top 100 Place To Work for 2015 as of yesterday.

toomuchbaloney · Mar 7, 2015

Texas Health Resources was named in the Top 100 Place To Work for 2015 as of yesterday.
Texas Health Resources - - Fortune

I think that is especially true if you are an executive suite type of employee...their CEO is one of the highest paid in the country I believe. The compensation for the CEO with Texas Health Resources is reported to be $5,716,724, which includes a salary alone of over $5 million, and over one-half million in the category of other.â€ Executive Compensation In Non-Profit Organizations | Blogcritics

allnurses Guide · Mar 7, 2015

I don't know about the facility except what is in this forum.

My guess is that like most hospitals they were too positive about their readiness for this disease.

No worse than most hospitals in the country.

I think they all need to take nurses seriously when they ask for information and/or make suggestions.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Mar 8, 2015

If she does get compensated, I hope it's only for the amount of her medical bills/furnishing her apartment and future medical expenses (I read somewhere that her medical expenses from THR/NIH were taken care of & she didn't have to pay for anything).

Not me. I hope she gets compensated a lot. Like she'll never have to worry about working again a lot since by filing this lawsuit chances are pretty good that her career is done. With the publicity she's received and filing a lawsuit against her employer on top of that it'll be darn hard if not impossible for her to find another job.

SubSippi · Mar 8, 2015

This is probably not the point, but our whole legal system, litigious society, "I'm going to sue you" mentality, makes me grind my teeth. It is purely anecdotal but I hear horror stories of lawyers suing, winning, then 80% of the settlement goes to the lawyer 20% goes to the claimant.
I had a friend who was treated for several months at a local hospital and completely misdiagnosed. When someone finally figured out what was causing the problem it was like DUH! (Really a BIG DUH!)
She asked the CEO, director, medical attending, heads of various departments, etc., to meet with her. She specifically said she had no desire to sue anybody. She wanted them to remember her, what the "error" was, and make sure this did not happen to anybody else.
Sorry but my gut response when people sue is they (or a lawyer) see dollar signs. They are not trying to fix a problem.

Sometimes the only way to fix a problem is to hit someone where it hurts. People start to pay attention if something might affect their paycheck or their reputation.

Not to mention this wasn't a mistake, that hospital was negligent, and did not have appropriate PPD available for their nurses.

Hopefully other healthcare facilities will take notice, and take appropriate measures to protect their employees in the future.

Gooselady, BSN, RN · Mar 9, 2015

I loathe how litigious this society is too. There are appropriate times to litig and I believe this is one of them. After reading the CDC's Ebola protocol, and comparing how NOT available this protocol was to this nurse (or any of her fellows for that matter) I believe suing is appropriate.

Besides, corporations communicate by suing, it's just part of the language and behavior of such a beast. It's the only way to get through to them, to threaten their wallet. It's not even personal, it's just how they roll. I don't know where I personally would draw the line, if I were in her shoes, as far as 'damages' go. I hope she sets an example here, and that most of the people most of the time will successfully use her 'precedent' because this will happen again and again.

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Mar 9, 2015

... and also the nurse who spoke out on national TV, sorry I don't remember her name.

That would be Brianna Aguirre.

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Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Mar 9, 2015

I loathe how litigious this society is too. There are appropriate times to litig and I believe this is one of them. After reading the CDC's Ebola protocol, and comparing how NOT available this protocol was to this nurse (or any of her fellows for that matter) I believe suing is appropriate.
Besides, corporations communicate by suing, it's just part of the language and behavior of such a beast. It's the only way to get through to them, to threaten their wallet. It's not even personal, it's just how they roll. I don't know where I personally would draw the line, if I were in her shoes, as far as 'damages' go. I hope she sets an example here, and that most of the people most of the time will successfully use her 'precedent' because this will happen again and again.

The CDC's protocol was changed AFTER the two Dallas nurses became ill. The nurses were allegedly wearing what was recommended at the time by the CDC, which was more suited to field conditions in countries without adequate resources than in US hospitals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pp28QYJDMI

PPE is discussed at the 3:00 minute mark.

allnurses Guide · Mar 9, 2015

Exactly. The hospital did exactly what the CDC said was safe and all of that was on hand at the time. When nurses protested, they ordered hazmat suits with respirators even as the CDC protested that was overkill. I would think it would be the CDC being sued.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 10, 2015

Exactly. The hospital did exactly what the CDC said was safe and all of that was on hand at the time. When nurses protested, they ordered hazmat suits with respirators even as the CDC protested that was overkill. I would think it would be the CDC being sued.

Nina is also suing for HIPAA violation and use of her image in promotional videos without her permission. Those are appropriate reasons to sue the hospital and frankly, after the way they threw her under the bus when she was first diagnosed, I think they have it coming.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Mar 10, 2015

Nina is also suing for HIPAA violation and use of her image in promotional videos without her permission. Those are appropriate reasons to sue the hospital and frankly, after the way they threw her under the bus when she was first diagnosed, I think they have it coming.

I think people are getting confused about how this all went down. The hospital never threw Nina under the bus. It was the CDC head who stated that she was infected "because of a break in protocol," which many people took to mean that she had been careless or didn't follow instructions. The hospital did NOT say she screwed up, much less did they throw her under the bus IIRC. In fact, in the early days, they wouldn't even comment on her specifically by name. It was her family who identified her and provided the cute photo we all saw of her wearing sunglasses and canoodling with her dog.

I think it appears that there were HIPAA violations. According to the lawsuit, they got her to sign releases allowing them to release info on her status while she was sick and vulnerable. I believe Nina should be compensated for the fact that she became ill on THR's watch, and also because it's the right thing to do. There are a lot of reasons why the hospital should and probably will settle with her, but not because they didn't follow CDC protocol or threw her under the bus when she was first diagnosed.

allnurses Guide · Mar 10, 2015

Nina is also suing for HIPAA violation and use of her image in promotional videos without her permission. Those are appropriate reasons to sue the hospital and frankly, after the way they threw her under the bus when she was first diagnosed, I think they have it coming.

It was the CDC that threw her under the bus and then had to get on camera and issue an apology for it. The hospital never did that.