Lawsuit Alleges HCA Endangers Workers, Community During COVID-19

Three healthcare workers are seeking damages from HCA Healthcare and one of its community hospitals after contracting COVID-19 on the job.

A first-in-the-nation lawsuit recently filed on behalf of the workers by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) claims HCA Healthcare and Riverside Community Hospital “recklessly facilitated the spread of COVID-19” by forcing sick employees to work shifts despite displaying symptoms of the virus.

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The workers also allege that the community hospital and its 184-hospital system operator made employees work without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, gowns, hairnets, gloves, and face shields, and pressured employees not to take reasonable and necessary precautions against exposure to COVID-19 if the precautions would negatively impact efficiency and/or productivity.

Such precautions included frequent sanitization of commonly used medical tools and commonly touched services, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also claims the hospital and its operator failed to instruct asymptomatic workers who came into prolonged close contact with their employees with COVID-19 to self-quarantine. And when workers had tested positive for the virus, the hospital did not conduct basic contact tracing or provide timely notifications to co-workers.

“All of us as healthcare workers know we face higher risks in a hospital environment where we work in close proximity to patients suffering from COVID-19, but this hospital and its parent company didn’t follow CDC guidelines and didn’t seem to care about our safety or the safety of our patients,” said one of the plaintiffs, Gladys Reyes, who works as a lab assistant and phlebotomist at Riverside Community Hospital.

Reyes tested positive for the virus in June.

“I was told I didn’t need a second COVID-19 test before returning to work in July even though I still had symptoms. I took one anyway and tested positive,” Reyes stated in a press release.

The other plaintiffs include Riverside Community Hospital employees Vanessa Mondragon and Ray Valdivia, who also tested positive for COVID-19 during the pandemic.

The workers say many of their family members, including Mondragon’s mother who died of COVID-19 in June, contracted the virus from them as a result of the dangerous work environment created by the hospital and its operator.

The lawsuit comes weeks after registered nurses at Riverside Community Hospital staged a 10-day strike following a breakdown in discussions over patient and nurse safety issues due to staffing shortages, according to the local SEIU chapter.

During the strike, nurses slammed the hospital for its lack of sufficient PPE and adequate safety measures during the pandemic.

In response to the lawsuit, Riverside Community Hospital’s Annette Greenwood slammed the lawsuit as a publicity stunt.

“No one takes the health and safety of our workers more seriously than we do, and since day one, our top priority has been to protect them – to keep them safe and keep them employed – so they can best care for our patients. Any suggestion otherwise ignores the extensive work, planning and training we have done to ensure the delivery of high quality care during this pandemic,” Greenwood, who serves as chief nursing officer, said in a statement emailed to RevCycleIntelligence. 

“Our frontline caregivers have shown unwavering commitment and tremendous sacrifice, and our safety efforts have included testing of colleagues, universal masking and other safeguards, in line with guidance from the CDC,” Greenwood added. “We’re proud of our response and the significant resources we’ve deployed to help keep our colleagues safe. This lawsuit is an attempt for the union to gain publicity, and we will defend it vigorously.”

COVID-19 has infected nearly 143,000 healthcare workers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the time of publication. Of those infected, 660 have died of the virus.

A study published in May 2020 showed that frontline healthcare workers had a nearly 12-times higher risk of testing positive for COVID-19 versus individuals in the general community. Healthcare workers with inadequate access to PPE had an even great risk, researchers noted.

CDC recommends that healthcare personnel with mild to moderate illness who are not severely immunocompromised can return to work at least 10 days since symptoms first appeared and at least 24 hours after the last fever without the use of fever-reducing medications. Symptoms (e.g. cough, shortness of breath) should also have improved.

For those with several to critical illness, organizations should also consult with an infection control expert, CDC states in guidance.