Breese nurse’s lawsuit alleges health department asked her to violate privacy laws
A Breese nurse has filed a lawsuit against Clinton County Health Department, alleging that she was fired in April for refusing to give law-enforcement agencies the names and addresses of people with COVID-19.
Diane Kuhl argues that it would have been illegal for her to take such action under federal and state laws that protect patient privacy and that she could have faced disciplinary action, including the loss of her nursing license.
“It’s a pretty simple issue,” said her attorney, Carl R. Draper, of the Feldman Wasser law firm in Springfield. “It’s really about the public being able to have confidence that their private information won’t be shared. There’s a serious concern that people won’t go get tested (for the coronavirus) if they’re going to be stigmatized.”
Kuhl worked several years as a part-time nurse for the health department, Draper said.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Clinton County Circuit Court, holds that Kuhl is protected from retaliation under the state’s Whistleblower Act for refusing to violate the Illinois Medical Patient Rights Act and Nurse Practice Act and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
The health department, based in Carlyle, has 30 days to respond.
Interim Administrator Sean Eifert said Tuesday that he was unaware of the lawsuit and declined to comment. He referred questions to the health department’s attorney, Julie Bruch, a partner at O’Halloran, Kosoff, Geitner & Cook in Chicago, who didn’t return phone calls.
Draper said Eifert asked Kuhl to provide names and addresses (later just addresses) of people who had tested positive for the coronavirus to Clinton County Sheriff’s Department and police chiefs for all municipalities in the county under the pretense that they could take extra precautions when responding to 911 calls. The Illinois Department of Public Health already recommends that first responders behave as if everyone is contagious, just in case, he said.
“It appears to her that people are simply being nosy and gossipy, and that was her real concern,” Draper said. “The minute that you share any information about people, somehow that information gets out and people get stigmatized because they did the right thing and got tested.”
Clinton County Sheriff Doug Maue on Wednesday declined to confirm whether law enforcement is getting information on COVID-19 patients due to the pending litigation and referred questions to Bruch.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a tug of war between patient privacy laws and the public’s right to know all over the country.
St. Clair County Health Department, based in Belleville, provides addresses, but not names, of people who test positive for the coronavirus to the county’s Emergency Management Agency, said spokesman Brenda Fedak.
“There was a lot of discussion,” she said. “We worked with our state’s attorney’s office and IDPH. It was not their recommendation at the time ... that the information be released, but we understood (the concerns of first responders), and we figured out a way to do it. All the fire departments and police departments signed a confidentiality waiver that they would not use the information for anything other than emergency purposes.”
After 10 days, when patients are assumed to be recovered, the addresses “fall off” reporting documents, Fedak said.
The Madison County Health Department worked hard to come up with a system that provides “minimal” information on COVID-19 patients to emergency-services personnel, said Amy Yeager, director of community health.
“When they’re dispatched, they need to know at minimum if they’re walking into a potentially hazardous situation,” she said.
Kuhl was fired on April 3, according to the lawsuit.
Before that, Draper said, Kuhl suggested that she give the names and addresses of COVID-19 patients to Eifert or Clinton County Health Department Medical Director Dr. Brian Klosterman, then they could make their own decisions on whether it was legal to release information to law enforcement and take the risk.
Kuhl’s lawsuit is a reminder that health-care officials have a responsibility to protect patient privacy, even during a pandemic, Draper said.
“When an employee refuses to engage in illegal conduct, and they get fired for it, they have a right to file a lawsuit,” he said. “They have a right to get reinstated in their job, (be reimbursed for) lost wages and benefits, their attorney’s fees and costs.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
