ER doctor
who criticized Bellingham hospital’s coronavirus protections has been fired
March 27, 2020
Dr. Ming Lin has worked in the emergency room at PeaceHealth St. Joseph
Medical Center in Bellingham for 17 years. (Eric Miller)
BELLINGHAM
– An emergency room physician who publicly decried what he called a lack of
protective measures against the novel coronavirus at his workplace, PeaceHealth
St. Joseph Medical Center, has been fired.
Ming
Lin, who has worked at the hospital for 17 years and became a local cause
célèbre for his pleas for more safety
equipment
and more urgent measures to protect staff, was informed of his termination as
he was preparing for a shift at the hospital Friday afternoon, he said.
“I
got a message that said, ‘Your shift has been covered,’” Lin told The Seattle
Times. He phoned his supervisor and was told, “You’ve been terminated.” Lin
said he was told he would be contacted by human resources staff from his
employer, TeamHealth, a national firm that
contracts with PeaceHealth’s emergency department.
TeamHealth
could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesperson for PeaceHealth
St. Joseph confirmed that Lin had been fired but said the hospital had no
comment because Lin wasn’t a PeaceHealth employee.
Lin
said supervisors threatened his employment more than a week ago after he spoke
to reporters and made social media posts accusing PeaceHealth of a lack of
urgency to protect health care workers from the virus.
Lin
said he was told to take down his social media posts about the hospital but
refused.
He
continued to post daily updates on Facebook
after shifts at the emergency room, although many of his posts had shifted away
from hospital practices to efforts to help secure more protective equipment for
hospital workers.
Specifically,
Lin had written that PeaceHealth St. Joseph refused to screen all patients
outside the hospital, rather than in an often-crowded emergency room waiting
area where the virus could easily spread. Two emergency department workers, who
both asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, told The Times they shared
Lin’s concerns about the possible spread of infection because of that practice.
Lin
and other doctors have also persistently complained about the availability of
testing approved by PeaceHealth, even as testing capacity ramps up in
Washington state.
Hospital
administrators this week announced a series of protective measures, such as
temperature screening of staff entering the building, plans to enhance
separation of staff from infected patients, and the availability of tents to
conduct outside screening if deemed necessary.
Lin
and other hospital staff noted that most or all of these measures came after
Lin’s treatises prompted a community outcry. Meanwhile, Lin maintains the
measures fail to meet standards set by other regional hospitals and even
smaller health care facilities.
PeaceHealth
St. Joseph is the only emergency facility for some 250,000 people in the
state’s northwest corner.
“Several”
hospital staff have tested positive for the virus, the hospital’s chief
executive, Charles Prosper, announced this week, insisting
that the infections were unrelated to their work at the hospital.
Whatcom
County to date has recorded 92 positive COVID-19 tests, a large number of them
at a single facility, Shuksan Healthcare
Center
in Bellingham’s York neighborhood. County health officials said Thursday
that the virus had spread to “several” other local senior facilities. Four
county residents have died.
Lin
said he has been touched by a groundswell of support from residents and health
care workers in Bellingham.
“I’ll
be OK,” said Lin, a longtime physician whose ER work included a stint at a
trauma center near the World Trade Center in New York City during the 9/11
terror attacks. “It’s a blow to my ego more than anything.”
.
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