A former Mercy Regional Medical Center nurse has settled a lawsuit in which she alleged she was fired for repeatedly expressing concern about patient safety because of understaffing in the Family Birth Center.
Deborah Patterson, a registered nurse who worked at Mercy from 1988 to Sept. 12, 2011, when she was fired, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.
Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Suzanne Fairchild Carlson denied a motion by Mercy and Centura for a summary judgment throwing out her lawsuit that asked for reinstatement with all benefits, legal fees and compensation for mental anguish.
Patterson also wanted a judgment saying the hospital violated a state law forbidding retaliation against registered health-care workers for speaking out about patient safety.
Mercy spokesman David Bruz-zese said patient safety is of utmost importance to the medical center.
“We encourage staff, patients and providers to speak up if they have any concerns about care provided at the hospital,” Bruz- zese said. “Various independent organizations, including accrediting agencies that perform on-site surveys, have recognized Mercy for its high quality of care.”
Patterson said she wasn’t a troublemaker.
“I wanted to more than make waves,” Patterson said Monday in an interview at her home. “I wanted guidelines for nurses where there are none, but no one would listen.”
Patterson worked full-time early in her career at Mercy, but switched to casual status to study for a master’s degree in nursing leadership.
Starting in 2009, she pointed at least eight times to inadequate staffing in the Family Birth Center. Perhaps the most glaring example, she said, occurred in July 2010, when she was called in during an emergency when there were two nurses to care for eight patients, four of them in labor.
She voiced concerns about patient safety personally, in writing or by telephone to immediate supervisors, the human resources department, the director of ministry at Mercy, an attorney at Centura Health Corp., the Mercy parent organization, and Centura CEO Gary Campbell.
All she received in return were empty words, Patterson said.
“I wanted shared decision-making,” Patterson said. “I wanted an acuity system to make nurse assignments.”
An acuity system assigns a number of patients to a nurse based on the health of the patients, in contrast to an unbending ratio of X amount of patients per nurse regardless of their health, Patterson said.
Patterson, a nurse for 31 years, has two daughters and a granddaughter employed at Mercy. She teaches at Grand Canyon University, a private institution in Phoenix; is a preceptor for master students who want to teach; and is a nurse leader for the Red Cross in Durango.
Patterson said she was fired in retaliation for her outspokenness and for taking the matter beyond the hospital to Centura.
The hospital reneged on promises that no one would be fired for speaking about patient safety, she said.
Mercy has no guidelines for its nurses, Patterson said. She cited a newly published book, Unaccountable by Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In it, he says:
“Mayo Clinic’s high level of service and focus on patient-centeredness is the envy of every hospital in America. It is a true team effort. Administrators there act more like investigative reporters, walking the halls in search of problems to fix.”
Carlson said Mercy officials said Patterson failed to fulfill the shift-frequency requirements of a casual-status nurse, but provided no written policy.
Patterson said she logged far more shifts than the minimal number required for casual-status employment.
daler@durangoherald.com
I undersood the situation but wrote it backwards. It was the defendant’s motion for a summary judgment, not the plaintiff’s.
