ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
A NURSE AND A PATIENT are both suing a hospital for the ordeal they say the procedure was for them.
The patient felt nervous enough. She was 4 1/2 months pregnant with a deformed fetus, lying on a hospital bed, waiting for an abortion. She knew it would be traumatic.
Into her room walked a nurse who, she says, turned her morning into a horror.
The nurse criticized her for choosing the abortion, told her she would never get over it and said she would have to celebrate her dead child's birthday just as she celebrated her living child's, the patient says.
Then, she says, the nurse started crying and said she was opposed to abortion. The nurse said she had never assisted in an abortion and told the patient she would have to help her through the difficult procedure.
That was in December 1994. This month, the patient - using the pseudonym Jane Doe - sued Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and the nurse, Nancy C. Benson of Norfolk, for medical malpractice and other alleged misdeeds.
She is seeking $1million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
This is the same abortion that prompted another lawsuit this year. In that case, the nurse sued the hospital, claiming religious discrimination: She says she was fired for refusing to help with the Doe operation. That case is pending in federal court.
All sides agree that the nurse was taken off the abortion soon after the incident and suspended, then quit a few days later.
The patient sued Dec. 6 in Circuit Court under a pseudonym to protect her privacy. She says in court papers that she feared the nurse would withhold pain medication and would not help her through the procedure.
``This really doesn't come down to whether you're pro-life or pro-choice,'' said Doe's attorney, Michael Goodove. ``She [the patient] has made a lawful decision to terminate a pregnancy, and she should not be subject to someone else's views. A professional nurse should never, ever subject a patient to this kind of treatment.''
Sentara agrees the nurse was out of line, but says it took swift action against the nurse for acting improperly.
``Sentara suspended [Benson] for imposing her views and judgment on a patient,'' says a legal brief by Sentara's attorney, William Furr, in the discrimination case. The brief says the nurse's conduct was ``totally inappropriate.''
Benson's attorney did not return repeated phone calls.
Together, the lawsuits put Sentara and the nurse in awkward legal positions.
First, it means Sentara must defend itself against two lawsuits involving the same abortion. Benson's suit says Sentara acted too strongly against her. The patient's suit says Sentara didn't act strongly enough to protect her from the nurse.
The lawsuits also put the nurse in an odd spot, suing Sentara in one while a co-defendant with Sentara in the other.
``Litigation makes strange bedfellows,'' said a Sentara attorney, William Rachels Jr.
``The hospital is certainly caught between a rock and a hard place,'' said Goodove, the patient's attorney.
The nurse's lawsuit was filed in March and is pending in federal court in Norfolk. A judge heard arguments last week and will rule soon on Sentara's motion to dismiss it. The trial is scheduled for Jan.14.
Court documents, including sworn depositions by nurse Benson, the patient and her family, spell out what happened in the hospital room the morning of Dec. 22, 1994.
Jane Doe was about 20 weeks pregnant - halfway to her baby's birth - but there were problems. Medical examinations found severe abnormalities, including spina bifida, water on the brain and clubfeet, Goodove said.
After much agonizing, the patient and her husband decided to abort.
At Norfolk General, Nancy Benson was one of five nurses in the labor-and-delivery unit. She was assigned to the abortion.
Benson says in her lawsuit that she had strong religious and moral objections, and Sentara knew her feelings, yet ordered her to help with the Doe abortion.
Sentara says in court papers that Benson never told her supervisors how she felt and never filed her objections in writing. If she had, Sentara says, the nurse never would have been assigned to abortions. Sentara also says Benson could have swapped assignments with another nurse.
Benson says there was not enough time and, anyway, it violated her religious beliefs to ask someone else to help with an abortion.
About 7:30 a.m., Benson started an intravenous line and began giving the patient medications.
Sentara's legal brief in the discrimination case gives this version of what happened next:
Benson said, ``I don't do these,'' meaning abortions. She told Jane Doe the abortion would always be with her, that she would never forget it, that it might be traumatic and that it might come up later in her life.
Benson told Doe that she would need to celebrate the dead child's birthday the same as her living child's.
The nurse questioned the fetus' deformity, according to the legal brief. She told Doe that there are boys and girls at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters born with this defect and they are beautiful. She told Doe there was some doubt as to the fetus' birth defect and asked if Doe had got a second opinion.
At that point, the brief says, Doe asked Benson if she was opposed to abortion, and Benson said yes. The nurse started crying, told Doe she would have a hard time dealing with this and said she might never get over it. She asked the patient to help her - the nurse - get through the procedure.
John and Jane Doe complained, and the nurse was removed. She was later suspended and eventually quit.
Benson says she was forced out because of her religious views. Sentara says Benson's conduct was intolerable.
``Health care providers have a right to their religions,'' Sentara's legal brief states, ``but they do not have a right to impose their religious views on their patients.''
The new lawsuit has not been served on Benson or Sentara, so they have not replied.
Meanwhile, a third lawsuit involving abortion at Norfolk General has been settled out of court.
In that case, another nurse - Deborah J. Michael of Gatesville, N.C. - claimed Sentara fired her for refusing to help with abortions. ``Sentara was ready and willing to take this case to trial,'' Furr said, ``but agreed to a resolution of this case when Ms. Michael decided to conclude the lawsuit for personal and emotional reasons.'' Further details are not available.
LENGTH: Long : 122 linesby CNB