‘Whistle-blowers’ vs Filipino doctor in US settle suit

Two Texas nurses have agreed for a $750,000 settlement in connection with the lawsuit they filed against the Winkler Country hospital that fired them for accusing one of its doctors of improper medical treatment. Winkler County Memorial Hospital fired Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle for alleged misuse of official information when they anonymously reported Dr. Rolando Arafiles Jr., a Filipino, to the state medical board in 2009. Mitchell was acquitted in February this year, while charges against Galle were dropped shortly before the trial commenced. State and national nursing associations earlier supported the two nurses’ cause, warning that their prosecution sends a “chilling effect" on the reporting of medical malpractice. Mitchell, 53, said in an interview by The New York Times that she was glad to put the issue behind her. “We’ll be able to move on with our lives. We never thought we’d be in this situation at this stage, when we should be settling down and looking toward retirement," she said. One of their nurses’ lawyers said in the article that both Mitchell and Galle, residents of Jal City in New Mexico, were unable to find new employment in the medical field after they were dismissed as nursing administrators last year. According to the article, the nurses’ lawsuit asserted that they had been subjected to “vindictive prosecution" and denied their First Amendment rights. The hospital and other defendants agreed to the settlement without acknowledging liability, the article further noted. "Substandard treatment" Arafiles was charged in late June by the Texas Medical Board with numerous violations, including “failure to maintain adequate medical records, poor medical judgment, poor decision-making, overbilling, improper coding, non-therapeutic prescribing and/or treatment and intimidation of witnesses." The complaint alleges substandard treatment of nine patients in 2008 and 2009. Arafiles is accused, for instance, of suturing a rubber scissor tip to a patient’s finger; using an unapproved olive oil solution on a patient with a highly resistant bacterial infection; failing to diagnose appendicitis; and conducting a skin graft in the emergency room without surgical privileges. He continues to work at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Kermit while awaiting a hearing before an administrative law judge on the medical board’s charges. His license may be restricted or revoked should the charges be proven. Arafiles’ background Arafiles finished medicine at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in 1977, according to the medical website Vitals, which keeps a public listing of US-based doctors and their credentials and specialization. He completed residencies at the Davao Brokenshire Memorial Hospital and East Avenue Medical Center, before migrating to the US to practice his profession. Vitals further lists Arafiles as having 29 years of experience as an emergency physician, whose specializations family and general practice, and pain medicine. In 2007, the state board placed a three-year restriction on his license, after reviewing charges of unprofessional conduct and inadequate supervision of subordinates at a weight-loss clinic where he worked. Anonymous letter In April this year, the Department of State Health Services fined the Winkler County Hospital $15,850 for inadequately supervising Arafiles, and for firing Mitchell and Galle. The nurses, in charge of quality assurance and regulatory compliance, said they began having concerns about Arafiles soon after he was hired in 2008 by the hospital. Feeling that their warnings went unheeded, the nurses wrote the state medical board anonymously. Upon learning of the complaint, Arafiles persuaded the county sheriff to investigate who had filed the complaint. The sheriff, who was reportedly a friend and patient of Arafiles’, subsequently obtained a search warrant to seize the nurses’ computers. He found the draft of the complaint letter on the hard drive of Mitchell’s computer, and Arafiles brought the case to a grand jury. According to the New York Times article, the jury took less than an hour to rules against the prosecutors’ assertion that Mitchell had acted in bad faith. - KBK, GMANews.TV