A union filed a lawsuit Thursday, Aug. 20, alleging Riverside Community Hospital and its parent company, HCA Healthcare, failed to take appropriate measures to protect hospital workers – including two who died – from exposure to the new coronavirus.
Service Providers International Union – United Health Care Workers West commissioned by three workers who contracted COVID-19, and the daughter of a hospital staff member who fell ill and died.
The suit alleges that the hospital was negligent and caused a public nuisance because patients, staff and visitors were subjected to increased exposure, as well as the surrounding community, and sought harm to be determined during trial.
The pack names as suspects HCA Healthcare; Samuel N. Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare; Riverside Healthcare System, doing business as Riverside Community Hospital; and Jackie DeSouza-Van Blaricum, the hospital’s CEO.
Hospital spokeswoman Cherie Crutcher shrugged off the allegations in a statement, saying the hospital is “proud” of the efforts it has made and the “important resources we have deployed since the beginning of the hospital.” pandemic.
“No one takes the health and safety of our workers more seriously than we do, and since day one it has been our top priority to protect them – to keep them safe and committed – so that they can provide the best care for our patients,” Crutcher said. said in an email. “Every suggestion ignores the extensive work, planning and training we have done to ensure the delivery of high quality care during this pandemic.”
The hospital has followed U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for testing and wearing a mask, including safety, Crutcher said.
“This lawsuit is an attempt by the union to win publicity, and we will defend it vigorously,” she wrote.
The plaintiffs are employees Vanessa Mondragon, Gladys Reyes and Ray Valdivia, as well as Vanessa Campos Villalobos, daughter of employee Sally Lara. Lara died June 8 after spending two weeks on a ventilator.
Campos Villalobos, a 30-year-old Redlands resident, said at a virtual news conference Thursday morning that her mother, who worked a night shift in a hospital laboratory, began experiencing symptoms on Mother’s Day. The day before, the suit said, Lara worked close to patients suffering from COVID-19 and was in “long contact” with staff who were exposed.
Campos Villalobos said her mother was not provided with adequate equipment to protect against infection and that “is the reason why she is no longer with us.”
“It just breaks my heart that my mother died on June 8,” she said. “And I still hear stories from employees that there is not enough PPE yet.”
Dave Regan, union president, said Lara was back from retirement to help colleagues and patients with the pandemic.
Regan said that in addition to the two who died, several workers tested positive for COVID-19, although the total is not known. Crutcher did not respond to a question asking how many are infected.
Gladys Reyes, a 44-year-old Riverside resident and laboratory assistant and phlebotomist, said she tested positive for the virus in June after being pressured to speed up blood draw and was not allowed to take time to properly disinfect equipment.
“That was very scary because I didn’t want to catch it, and I ended up catching it,” Reyes said. “Thank God I’m okay now.”
Reyes and Mondragon, both lab assistants, drew blood from COVID-19 patients.
In team meetings, the suit said, staff were asked to disinfect face screens, jackets and other equipment between patients, leading to blood draws for two people in an hour instead of six. Supervisors then told them that they “should not sanitize all their equipment if they cannot meet the prior quota of six blood draws per hour,” the suit claims.
“I feel like they were more concerned about a number than my safety,” Reyes said, adding that work “was very scary.”
Reyes tested positive for COVID-19 on June 24, the pack said.
She returned that she was very tired and had a bad headache, symptoms that got worse.
“My eyes were sore and it was hard to breathe,” Reyes said.
Reyes still had symptoms when she was instructed to return on July 21 and told that she did not have to take a second test, the suit said. She did, though – and the result was positive.
The lawsuit alleges that hospital officials often refuse requests from staff for protective equipment.
Lara, the woman who died, was left to buy her own masks, jackets, face shields and boots – over and over again, the suit claims. Valdivia, a patient safety observer, requested an N95 as an equivalent mask and was denied, the lawsuit claims. Pharmacy workers were told to use disposable box covers as masks, the suit stated.
According to the suit, a manager told Lara that the hospital fulfilled its obligations when she complained that only doctors and nurses – and not other hospital workers – received adequate protective equipment.
SEIU lawyer Bruce Harland, who filed the case Thursday morning, said: “There is an attitude in the hospital that COVID somehow does not exist in the hospital.”
Regan, the union president, said that to his knowledge the suit was the first in the nation against a major national hospital chain regarding staff protection against COVID-19. He said the union represents about 1,100 employees in the hospital.
The filing follows two vigils for two hospital workers who died after contracting the virus, Lara and Rosa Luna, a 68-year-old Riverside environmental services clerk. Luna’s family is not part of the pack.
At the end of June, about 500 nurses went on strike for 10 days, claiming that the hospital operated with dangerously low staff levels.
In April, about 50 nurses and other health care workers staged a demonstration in front of the hospital, protesting what they said was the failure to provide proper equipment.
