DETROIT (WWJ) — A former DMC and Detroit Receiving Hospital employee is speaking out, saying she was fired after reporting the rapes of two psychiatric patients at the hospital.
A protest took place Tuesday afternoon outside the hospital, where Lakisha Davis, her lawyer, and other hospital employees called for an investigation into two separate alleged sexual assaults.
Attorney Azzam Elder has filed a $10 million lawsuit on behalf of Davis, alleging the DMC is covering up “an unsafe environment for psychiatric patients who have been raped while under their care and custody.”
DMC officials have called the lawsuit "baseless" and "an inappropriate attempt by a disgruntled fired employee to personally benefit from an unfortunate situation."
The lawsuit claims a psychiatric in-patient was raped by another patient “due to inadequate staffing and poor supervision.
“Despite previous warnings about the risks of understaffing, only two nurses and one technician were on duty at the time, which allowed the assailant to access the victim’s room without being noticed,” a press release from the attorney.
After the alleged sexual assault, the DMC “continued to operate with dangerously low staffing levels, failed to implement additional security measures, and did not take steps to separate violent or high-risk patients from vulnerable ones, thereby placing both patients and employees at ongoing risk of injury.”
That allegedly led to another sexual assault on June 2 in the psychiatric ward at DRH, which Davis says was caught on surveillance camera.
While the lawsuit says Davis was not working on the day of the second alleged rape, she was concerned about the victim, who had a mental health disability and was not able to fully comprehend what had happened to her.
After the second alleged rape, DMC brought in a team of “crisis managers” or “fixers” to try and fix “the messy situation,” according to the press release.
The release says Davis “kept insisting that DMC security preserve the video, inform that patient’s family about the rape, and report the rape to authorities.” But the “fixer team,” according to the press release, “avoided giving direct answers,” which raised further concerns about “a potential cover-up.”
The lawsuit claims Davis was told not to talk to the sexual assault victim or to anyone else about what happened.
While she was not working the day of the second alleged rape, the suit claims she was “abruptly fired” after “raising concerns about the need to protect patients better” and telling the hospital she was going to report the incident to authorities if they didn’t .
The lawsuit claims other employees were also fired and the second victim was coerced into signing a release that “absolved the hospital of liability.”
“Within days of the assault, the victim, still under significant emotional distress, was pressured into accepting a monetary settlement that was grossly inadequate compared to the harm she suffered,” the lawsuit says.
The DMC vehemently denied the accusations, releasing the following 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 says it is fully cooperating with regulatory agencies and has taken appropriate actions to ensure patient safety.
Speaking at Tuesday’s protest, Davis told WWJ’s Darrylin Horne the entire situation has been very stressful.
“I can’t sleep because what happened. I can’t get it out of my head. Seeing that is very disgusting. It’s like, ‘this is really happening to this person,’” she said, noting when she realized no one was coming forward, she “had to do something.”