Former Detroit hospital employee sues after raising concerns about two rapes of psychiatric patients
(CBS DETROIT) – A former employee of DMC's Detroit Receiving Hospital is suing the hospital, claiming she was wrongfully terminated after raising concerns following two rapes of psychiatric patients.
The Detroit Police Department confirmed it took two reports of sex assaults at the hospital. The first report in April was sent over to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office for charges. Police are still investigating a second case, which happened in June.
The former employee, Lakisha Davis, says both could have been prevented.
In April, Davis says she urged DMC to take action after a psychiatric patient was raped by another patient due to inadequate staffing and poor supervision.
"It's terrible. With just two nurses and one tech taking care of 22 patients, some of them aggressive, is unsafe," Davis said.
However, her concerns were allegedly ignored, and just two months later, another patient was raped under similar conditions.
"I was shocked. Like, is this really happening to this patient? Is this real? Are they really going to do something about this?" Davis said.
Davis saw security footage of the second incident and immediately reported it to security and hospital management.
"They didn't do nothing but fire me and put false allegations on me, saying that I recorded the video and showed it to around the hospital, which is not true," Davis said.
Her attorney, Azzam Elder, calls that retaliation.
"She went into this profession because she cares. She cares. But if you care, and they see that you care, and you speak up, they cut your head off, and that's got to stop. It's got to stop," Elder said.
Davis is suing the hospital for $10 million for emotional distress, lost wages and damage to her professional reputation.
"They are putting profits over people, profits over patients. They didn't care about the young, innocent, poor, black young ladies who were raped," said Reverend WJ Rideout, a community activist.
A spokesperson for DMC provided CBS News Detroit with this statement:
"This baseless lawsuit is an inappropriate attempt by a disgruntled fired employee to personally benefit from an unfortunate situation. Lakisha Davis was terminated for violating HIPAA Privacy Rules designed to protect patients, violation of DMC's Policies and repeatedly lying about her role in the investigation. In fact, Ms. Davis was already on a final notice and had recent disciplinary action before her termination.
It appears that Ms. Davis' lies continue following her loss of employment. In her lawsuit, Ms. Davis indicates that she repeatedly raised concerns about this incident, however in the union grievance filed after her termination, she claims that she "never at no time accessed any video and at no time did (she) report any incident…"
The DMC is fully cooperating with regulatory agencies and has taken appropriate actions to ensure patient safety."
"We're going to find out what happened, how they did it, how they covered it up, and what happened because this woman deserves a reputation to be restored," Elder said.