The latest long-term Eureka Springs Hospital employee to report being terminated unfairly is Becky Burt, the maintenance director who has worked at the hospital for more than 15 years. Burt’s departure means the hospital no longer has someone licensed to operate the hospital’s boiler system, which is a violation of state law.
Burt was suspended without pay Jan. 17 and was told by Interim CEO Jodi Edmondson that it was because Burt had not replaced some ceiling tiles and had allegedly violated HIPAA patient privacy laws with files found on her computer.
“I would like to know how that was possible because I couldn’t access any patient information ever on my computer,” Burt said. “I was over maintenance; I had nothing to do with patient information. The write-up also said I was failing to do my job replacing ceiling tiles. We have hundreds of ceiling tiles. They are not easy to replace but Terry Moore and I have been working on it. The report also cited that two exterior doors didn’t have alarms that the administration wanted. We had ordered the alarms and were waiting for them to come in. There is proof on my computer, but I can’t access it. It wasn’t right.”
Before Burt was let go on Jan. 23, she refused to submit an employee correction plan that she said would have falsely indicated she had done something wrong. Burt denied Edmondson’s allegation that Burt was being fired for failing to keep a secure and safe building. Burt believes she was fired in retaliation for taking a day planner out to the parking lot to give to previous Emergency Room Manager Joy Kennedy, who left her job citing bullying, harassment and a toxic workplace created by Edmondson, Chief Financial Officer Cynthia Asbury, hospital commission chair Kent Turner and vice chair Barbara Dicks.
Kennedy said she had forgotten her day planner in her office, and asked Burt to bring it out to the parking lot.
“I could have just gone in and gotten it but I told Jodi I needed to get in Joy’s office to get that notebook,” Burt said. “Jodi went there with me and looked through it. And then she handed it to me. I let Joy know I had her notebook. After taking the notebook out to Joy, Jodi said, ‘We hear there was a secret meeting out in the parking lot.’ If I had wanted a secret meeting, I wouldn’t have done it in a parking lot with video surveillance. I denied it was a secret meeting and said I was just returning the notebook.
“When I went back to my office, I couldn’t get on my computer. A little later, I was able to get into my computer temporarily before it stopped working again. The next morning, the 17th, I was written up for a computer breach and not doing my job.”
After Shaw’s firing Nov. 1, a dozen hospital workers including Burt signed a letter supporting Shaw and making detailed allegations of bullying, harassment, failure to approve supplies needed for patient safety, hostile behavior towards physicians, and abusive treatment of employees by Edmondson and Asbury. On Nov. 4, Petrino was fired. Of the 12 people who signed the letter, only a few remain, with one having submitted a resignation effective the first part of February.
During city council and hospital commission meetings in the past 2.5 months, about 25 present and former employees have alleged violations of workplace violence regulations, unfair human resource decisions and a failure to approve purchases of needed medical supplies. The commission has not given a public reason for firing Shaw and Petrino, who have filed lawsuits claiming they were fired for doing their duty by filing a HIPAA violation complaint. At the most recent hospital commission meeting, Asbury reported a loss of $132,000 in December, which she indicated was primarily due to lack of activity in the emergency room. The hospital has been on divert for trauma and certain other medical conditions because the laboratory is not fully functional.
On the day Burt was suspended, all the locks were changed on outside doors at the hospital. “That tells me they had no intention of keeping me because they changed the locks,” Burt said. “I had not had any earlier written disciplinary write ups. The hospital is required to have a boiler operator with a license. My former assistant, Terry Moore, is so experienced. He knows a lot. He is very capable, but he doesn’t have a license. Terry had turned in his notice and then decided to stay. That is when I felt they were putting a target on my back because they asked me to separate out what Terry and I do. I started thinking that they were coming after me.”
Moore has also spoken publicly about allegations of workplace conditions, but said he is raising four great-grandchildren and needs the job.