The whistleblower lawsuit, filed Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, identifies the plaintiff, Charles Briggs, as the sole staff doctor at the clinic from March 2008 until Oct. 1, 2010, when he was fired.
Briggs, 66, says in the suit that he was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about patient care with supervisors who did little to address them. He was told by Catholic Charities that he “interfered with the smooth running of the Clinic,” the suit says. He wants his job back and $2 million in damages.
A spokesman for Catholic Charities strongly disputed the allegations in the lawsuit.
The clinics are part of the Spanish Catholic Center, which provides medical and social services in Maryland and the District to poor Latinos with no health insurance, many of whom speak little English.
The center operates under the umbrella of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington. Its two medical clinics receive some federal, state and local government funds and private-sector grants, a Catholic Charities spokesman said. Last year, the Silver Spring and Northwest Washington medical clinics treated more than 5,000 patients, he said.
For those patients, “Catholic Charities was the place they trusted to go for quality health care,” said Alexis Ronickher, a lawyer with Katz, Marshall & Banks, which is representing Briggs. “. . .Instead of addressing the problems, Catholic Charities took the all too common approach of shooting the messenger.”
Marguerite Duane, medical director for the Spanish Catholic Center, said privacy concerns prevented her from discussing personnel issues or specific patients. The center’s mission is to provide the highest level of care to an underserved population, she said. Efforts to improve care are continuing, and medical care will get better when the Silver Spring clinic moves to a new facility in Wheaton on Monday, and when the Washington and Maryland clinics switch from paper charts to an electronic record system.
“Everything we do is about providing excellent care,” she said.
After reading an earlier, online version of this article, Catholic Charities spokesman Erik Salmi said in a statement Thursday: “While we have not been served with the complaint, we understand a lawsuit was filed today by a disgruntled former employee of the Spanish Catholic Center. We strongly dispute the information contained in the online edition of the Washington Post, and what we understand the allegations to be in the lawsuit. We will defend this matter vigorously.”
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