MACHIAS, Maine — A cardiologist and a nurse practitioner who both formerly worked at Down East Community Hospital have filed an 11-page lawsuit against the hospital, Quorum Health Resources, former CEO Wayne Dodwell, medical director Dr. David Rioux, and Walter Plaut Jr., chairman of the board of trustees.
Dr. Lowell Gerber and Danielle Duval, now both of Topsham, are seeking a jury trial and an unspecified amount of damages based on their whistle-blower statuses. They claim a violation of that status, defamation and breach of contract.
The pair maintain they were fired from DECH because they repeatedly spoke out against practices and conditions at the facility that they believed violated state and federal laws. They also refused to participate in practices that they believed violated law.
Telephone messages left seeking comment from Down East Community Hospital and Eastern Maine Healthcare officials had not been returned late Friday afternoon.
The suit said that during their tenure, both “witnessed acts and omissions with respect to patient care at the hospital that each reasonably believed to constitute deviations from the applicable standard of care.”
These included inadequate care and endangerment of patients with cardiac symptoms in the Emergency Department, failure of DECH and Quorum to adequately train employees dealing with cardiac patients, improper billing and requests for reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, and ordering of medically unnecessary tests which “were potentially detrimental to the patient’s health in order to bill for these unjustified tests.”
The lawsuit said the pair also witnessed the hospital’s failure to transfer patients to Eastern Maine Medical Center when it would have been beneficial to their care, instead choosing to keep patients in Machias “so that the hospital could continue billing for patient care even though the hospital was unable to provide the patient with appropriate care and retaining the patient at the hospital put the patient’s health and safety in danger.”
The pair were hired in October 2007 and fired in July 2008.
The lawsuit states that the pair reported the violations and their concerns repeatedly to the DECH board, medical director and CEO, and they were fired because of their complaints.
The lawsuit further contends that Quorum, Dodwell and Rioux made multiple knowingly false statements about the firings to staff, community and members of the media. It contends that Dodwell told the BDN that Gerber refused to participate in a peer review process and that Plaut told former patients that Gerber “had abandoned patients by voluntarily leaving his employment with the hospital.”
The suit states that Gerber’s reputation was harmed and he suffered mental anguish and personal humiliation.
The pair filed charges of discrimination with the Maine Human Rights Commission in January and were granted a “right to sue” letter. The lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
The Machias hospital has undergone state and federal investigations that began in 2008, and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services eventually terminated the Medicare and Medicaid agreement, giving a cutoff date of July 10. DECH then was placed in receivership and with Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems as the interim operator and Douglas Jones as the interim CEO. EMHS was given until Sept. 30 to address inadequacies.
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