Bankrupt RI Hospital Sues Nurses Union Over Dispute About Falsifying Patient Records
GoLocalProv News Team
Bankrupt RI Hospital Sues Nurses Union Over Dispute About Falsifying Patient Records
The incidents at the center of the lawsuit occurred at the Behavioral Health unit at Fatima Hospital — one of the CharterCARE Hospitals that now faces an uncertain fate in a bankruptcy court in Texas. (See stories below about CharterCARE's bankruptcy).
According to Prospect, a nurse repeatedly marked that a patient was in their room. Just one problem, said Prospect - the patient's bed was folded up and the patient had been discharged a day earlier.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“The Behavioral Health unit houses patients who are being treated for a host of psychological conditions and are often a danger to themselves or others. For this reason, great care is taken to ensure that its patients do not escape and are accounted for at all times. In connection with that goal, Behavioral Health is ‘locked down,’ with access restricted to certain employees and visitors," according to Prospect's lawsuit.
"The Hospital has a mandatory safety check procedure, whereby employees working in Behavioral Health account for each and every patient on the unit a minimum of every fifteen minutes. The Hospital maintains a binder containing a safety check sheet for each patient. One employee is responsible each hour for performing a thirteen item check on each patient, which is aimed at ensuring that each patient is present on the unit, located where they are supposed to be, and safe. Each time a check is performed, the responsible employee must note what the patient was doing when the employee observed them (e.g., sleeping, eating, standing in the hallway or recreation area), along with the employee’s initials. The initials are a certification by the employee to Fatima Hospital that the employee has performed the check," states the lawsuit.
Missing Patient in Room 242
"On February 18 (into the early morning of February 19), 2025, bargaining unit nurse Victoria Gallucci was working in Behavioral Health unit, along with five other employees, including two other UNAP-represented nurses and three 'technical' employees, who were also represented by UNAP (but in a different bargaining unit, consisting of all full-time and regular part-time technical employees). Shortly after 7:00 am on February 19, 2025, an employee on the next shift noticed that a patient, in Room 242, was missing. The safety check binder indicated that Room 242 was supposed to contain two patients, but only one was in the room. The 'missing' patient, referred to in the arbitration proceeding as Patient 242B, was actually not missing. He had been discharged at about 6:00 pm the previous day, on February 18, shortly before Gallucci’s shift started," states the lawsuit.
"An investigation uncovered that Gallucci and all of her coworkers certified about forty-eight (48) separate times that they had observed Patient 242B and performed the safety checks on him (and that he was safe and secure). Patient 242B was, of course, not in the building, having been discharged the evening of February 18, 2025," the lawsuit continues.
It turned out that someone had left Patient 242B’s safety check sheet in the binder after he was discharged, according to Prospect.
"This suggested to management that Gallucci and all of her coworkers had not, in fact, performed any safety checks that evening but, instead, had 'rubber-stamped' all of the entries in the safety binder. Given that this had happened so many times, the Hospital concluded that this was not inadvertent, but willful and intentional falsification of patient records. For her part, Gallucci falsely stated that she had performed at least six safety checks on Patient 242B," said the lawsuit.
"The Hospital ultimately decided to fire Gallucci and her five coworkers, all for falsification of patient records. Three of the employees opted to resign in lieu of termination. The Union filed grievances on behalf of the remaining employees, but one of those grievances was withdrawn. Thus, four of the six employees on Gallucci’s shift effectively have resigned," according to the lawsuit.
Then UNAP grieved the case to an arbitrator — Jeffrey Cassidy.
“The Arbitrator found that Fatima Hospital proved its case in every respect. The Union tried to shift blame for Gallucci’s willful misconduct onto the Hospital, claiming that its ‘systems’ somehow failed. The Union also argued that Gallucci was, at most, careless and made a mistake. Gallucci testified at the arbitration that she repeatedly walked by Room 242 (and testified, under oath, that she had done all of the checks as required). However, she also testified that she noticed that one of the two beds in Room 242B was ‘folded up,’ i.e., not in use. She did not have any explanation for how she knew for a fact that there was only one patient in Room 424 but failed to ‘flag’ that the safety check binder indicated that two patients were supposed to be in the room. It is no surprise that the Arbitrator did not believe this testimony,” states the lawsuit.
According to the arbitrator’s decision issued on December 17, 2025:
Fatima Hospital did not have just cause to terminate the grievant under the collective bargaining agreement. The penalty shall be an unpaid suspension from February 28, 2025, to January 1, 2026, at which time, or as close as possible, CharterCare shall return her to her position at OLF [Our Lady of Fatima].
Prospect: Nurse Repeatedly Falsified Patient Records
The lawsuit seeks to overturn the arbitrator’s decision.
“By holding that Prospect lacked just cause to terminate Gallucci, even though she was found to have intentionally (and repeatedly) falsified patient records, the Arbitrator’s Award violates Rhode Island public policy. Because the Award disregards public policy and represents the Arbitrator’s own brand of industrial justice, it should be vacated and set aside. The Hospital, as well as the public interest, will be damaged if it is forced to comply with the terms of the Arbitrator’s Award," according to the suit.