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Four nurses that work at a Landmark Hospital in Athens, Georgia, are coming forward to expose the facility for manipulating coronavirus test results.
According to 11Alive.Com, court documents filed just this week at Gwinnett County Superior Court, at least four nurses have outed the critical care center apparently “intentionally” manipulating COVID results in order to “cover up an outbreak at the facility.”
“When they had someone who would turn out positive, they would re-do the test so that it would come back negative, and they would say that it was a false positive,” one of the nurses told 11Alive.
The scheming didn’t stop there. The nurses also alleged that the hospital told it’s staff to purposely send samples of a patient’s throat to Piedmont Hospital (which only test nasal swabs) because they knew the results would come back negative for the coronavirus.
“Landmark had previously attempted to submit tracheal swabs to the lab at Piedmont, and these samples had been rejected as the lab was not able to perform tests on these types of specimens,” the court documents state.
The court paperwork also revealed that “Landmark purposefully submitted these samples with purposefully incorrect labels to orchestrate negative results for patients who had previously tested positive for COVID-19,” even though the lab would reject tracheal samples.
“Once our testing, the proper way, starting coming back positive, we then weren’t allowed to take samples any longer,” another nurse at the center said.
Another nurse told the news outlet, that when she properly facilitated a test, her boss negatively responded by firing her.
“I did the test, and it did turn out positive, and I was terminated for not having a doctor’s order for a test,” the nurse shared.
Representing the nurses in their case against Landmark Hospital are attorney’s Natalie Woodward and Brian Cathey who have since filed a restraining order, requesting a judge step in, the outlet reports.
“The number one purpose is to have a court step in and take this over, have everyone tested appropriately, stop all discharges, transfers or admissions until the right procedure is done to figure out how widespread it is,” Woodward stated.
“I think they got to the point where if they didn’t do this, they weren’t providing the care they needed to for their patients,” Cathey stated.
Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health at Georgia State University, Harry Heiman shares his thoughts on the claims and suggests that if what the nurses are saying is accurate, those improper measures would not lead to “accurate results.”
“So, intentionally taking a swab from the trachea and labeling it as coming from the nose will lead to it being handled improperly by the lab that’s analyzing it and will not likely lead to accurate results,” Heiman explained. “That’s what is alleged to be happening at this facility, and that’s unethical and dangerous both to the patients and to the staff.”
So far, the hospital has denied all allegations in a newly released statement.
“We can assure you that we will vigorously investigate allegations and defend our hospital and its staff against misleading and false claims,” Landmark Hospital CEO Marie Saylor wrote in a statement to 11Alive. “Landmark Hospital of Athens follows CDC, state and local guidelines as well as established protocols and procedures for COVID-19 testing. We are fully cooperating with all government inquiries about our operations, and look forward to promptly and fully resolving this matter.
While the Georgia Department of Public Health reports 363 positive cases, 15 deaths, and 54 hospitalizations from COVID-19 as of Thursday, the hospital claims they have no known positive patients at the moment. However, one nurse says that simply isn’t true.
“You’re lying to your patients,” the nurse stated. “You’re lying to your family members and quite frankly for a disease that has killed so many people, quit being so careless.”
