Four former employees of northwest Detroit's Sinai-Grace Hospital are suing the parent company,Tenet Healthcare, alleging they were fired for speaking out about unsafe conditions.
The whitsleblower lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, claims that staff shortages resulted in dozens of unnecessary deaths at the hospital during the Covid crisis in March and April. The for-profit Tenet Healthcare operates Sinai-Grace, part of the Detroit Medical Center.
Catherine Gaughan, a clinical coordinator who oversaw the emergency department, tells Kristen Jordan Shamus of the Detroit Free Press that a patient came in March 25 with breathing trouble.
"There's no way that man should have died," said Gaughan, describing him as young — in his late 30s or early 40s. "What had happened was the ventilator came disconnected, and because we didn't have the staff to properly monitor him, he died."
