An employee at MedStar Washington Hospital Center claims she lost her job for raising red flags on social media about what she contends was a lack of safety precautions by the hospital against the spread of the novel coronavirus.
According to a lawsuit filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, Sarah Cusick’s social media posts also prompted the hospital’s management to ask her to remove tweets, which she did.
“They called her in and said, ‘We want you to remove the posts; this is hurting MedStar’s brand,’” Cusick’s attorney, Lynne Bernabei, told The Washington Post. “Essentially, this is a whistleblower’s claim.”
So Young Pak, the hospital’s director of media relations, said the facility has not yet been served with the lawsuit. But on Wednesday, she said there were inaccuracies in a news release issued by Cusick’s attorney and disputed the claim that Cusick was fired. “The associate has not been terminated,” Pak said.
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“In addition, we know that it is essential to keep our employees healthy, so that we can continue to provide the care our patients need,” Pak said in a statement. “We have at all times followed CDC guidelines, as well as all executive orders relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the evolving nature of the disease, CDC and federal, state and local government have updated their expectations over time, and the hospital has likewise updated its practices to assure we minimize the spread of the virus.”
Cusick began working at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center in January 2018. According to her legal complaint, she was a hearing-and-speech assistant and her job entailed conducting newborn hearing screenings and assisting on speech language pathology diagnostics, as well as administrative duties.
The heart of Cusick’s complaint stems from what she claims was a failure of the hospital’s administrators to properly screen patients and others for covid-19 symptoms at the entrances to the facility. For example, by March 13, the hospital “had still not implemented any procedures for screening patients, visitors or members of the public upon entrance to the hospital, in clear violation of CDC recommendations,” the lawsuit alleges.
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Cusick said she made her concerns known to her higher-ups. After a new protocol was introduced for screening people entering the facility on March 16, Cusick alleged the guidelines were ignored. She also said she observed as social distancing measures were not being enforced in the hospital’s cafeteria.
The situation prompted Cusick to reach for her phone and tag the hospital in a Twitter post. “@MedStarWHC can we please follow @_DCHealth guidelines for eating in common areas?” she wrote on March 16 under a video she posted of the busy cafeteria, according to images provided to The Post.
A day later, Cusick again brought the issue up on Twitter, this time tagging the District’s mayor.
“@MayorBowser why are cafeterias like this inside the hospitals not being held to the same standards as other public cafeterias/mass gatherings?” she wrote on March 17, according to an image. “Please help protect our healthcare workers and the public @MedStarWHC currently has an open door policy, this is a public access cafeteria.”
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With screening still allegedly not going on at the hospital’s entrances, on March 18, Cusick recorded an interview with an unidentified security guard who acknowledged individuals walking through the entrances were not being checked at the security desk. Cusick uploaded the clip.
“I am posting this because I care for our patient safety,” she wrote later. “I have spoken to my superiors during our briefing and advocated for multiple precautionary measures that are recommended by the CDC, WHO, and @MayorBowser and have not seen action on the ‘frontlines.’”
According to the complaint, Cusick was called into a conference room that same day, where members of management told her she had violated “her social media contract and had violated patient and employee rights” under HIPAA.
“They further stated, tellingly, that it was inappropriate for Ms. Cusick to post things like this to social media because it made MedStar’s ‘brand’ look bad,” the complaint said.
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In tears, Cusick agreed to delete the tweets and maintained “she had consistently voiced her concerns” to her superiors “to no avail,” according to the lawsuit. Social media was a last resort to get management’s attention, she said.
After the meeting, Cusick was forced to turn over her hospital identification badge, and all her subsequent work shifts were canceled, the lawsuit said.
This story has been updated with the hospital disputing that Sarah Cusick was fired.
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