A Florida NICU nurse is out of a job after violating a patient’s privacy and posting photos of a newborn baby to her social media, mocking the infant’s birth defect.
Sierra Samuels worked as a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami before being fired on Thursday. She had been under investigation for several weeks.
Samuels made two Instagram posts about the infant born with gastroschisis, a defect where the intestines are outside the body.
In her first post, she posted a photo of the baby along with the caption, “My night was going great then boom!” The photo was taken from inside the hospital’s NICU, according to WVSN.
In a second post, she wrote, “Your intestines posed to be inside not outside baby!” She also hashtagged the photo with the newborn’s condition.
It’s not the first time Samuels had posted herself while on the job. She has posted several pictures of herself at work.
As soon as the hospital learned of the inappropriate posts last month, she was placed on administrative leave.
“As soon as we learned of this potential breach, we immediately placed this employee under administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation,” a spokesperson for the hospital stated.
The statement continued, “Protecting the privacy of our patients is always a top priority at Jackson Health System. Any potential privacy breach is taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.”
The baby’s mother was notified of the privacy breach, according to hospital officials.
