Three employees of the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven have been fired after sharing photos of a dead patient’s gunshot wound.
A clinician inappropriately photographed the wound of the patient and shared the photo with another staff member, who shared it with a small number of other individuals, the hospital said in a statement released on Thursday.
Hospital officials said the patient is unidentifiable in the photograph, but the picture was unauthorized and violates our zero tolerance policy relating to patient privacy.
The New Haven Independent reports that the patient was Travis Washington, a 17-year-old who was shot several times in the chest on June 25 at Percival and Carmel streets in New Haven. He was alive when he reached the hospital, but died soon after.
Travis’ mother, Virginia Robinson is considering suing the hospital, her attorney told the Independent, and called it a violation of patient confidentiality.
Hospital officials said three employees were terminated and others received written warnings, counseling and related education.
They did not release the titles or names of the people who were disciplined, citing employee privacy.
Local
“The photo was taken with a camera phone and sent to one person’s phone; that person then sent the image on to several more phones,” hospital officials said in a statement.
An attorney for Washington’s family told the Independent there were rumors that the photo might have spread through e-mail or Facebook.
“All of the images were completely deleted in the course of the hospital’s investigation. To the best of our knowledge, there were no Internet or social media postings of the image,” the hospital’s statement said.
Hospital officials said they reached out to Travis’ family after learning that the photo was taken to express “extreme dismay” over this incident.
“The Hospital of Saint Raphael has zero tolerance for anything that violates our patients’ privacy, and we handled the matter immediately and with the severity it deserved. The hospital conducted an intensive investigation upon learning of the photo and terminations were finalized within 10 days of the incident,” hospital officials said.
After learning through media reports that there was an effort to raise money to help the family with burial expenses, hospital officials offered to make a contribution to support these efforts, hospital officials said.
The family did not respond to the offer, according to hospital officials.
