Union says Providence fired 15 nurses in retaliation for news coverage of girl’s suicide at Spokane hospital

Washington's largest nurses union is accusing Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center of retaliation after the Spokane hospital fired 15 nurses and disciplined another following news reports about a 12-year-old girl's suicide at the facility.

The fired and disciplined nurses were accused by Sacred Heart of violating patient privacy laws by accessing the child’s medical records without being involved in her care, nurses told union officials at the Washington State Nurses Association. Additional employees beyond the 15 nurses were also terminated or disciplined on similar grounds, according to former employees, though the hospital would not say how many.

Sarah June Niyimbona had been awaiting long-term psychiatric placement for self-harm and suicide attempts for months when she slipped out of her room on Sacred Heart's pediatric floor on April 13. As hospital staff discovered she was missing and began a search, Sarah walked a quarter mile to the fourth floor of a parking garage on the hospital campus and jumped, dying two hours later in the emergency room.