Sierra Samuels who is a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, was fired on Thursday for sharing two photos on Instagram of a baby born with a condition causing its intestines to be outside of its body.
‘My night was going great then boom!’ she captioned the first photo of the baby (which is cropped out below) inside the hospital’s newborn ICU:
Samuels then followed it up with the second photo (blurred) with a caption reading: ‘Your intestines posed to be inside not outside baby’ and is followed up with ‘#gastroschisis’
Gastroschisis is a birth defect of the belly where the baby’s intestines are found outside of its body, exiting through a hole beside the belly button.
The hospital learned about the disturbing privacy issue and first placed Samuels on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
The mother of the child was also notified of the breach of privacy, the hospital told CBS Miami.
The hospital confirmed Thursday she had been fired for violating a patient’s privacy.
Jackson Health System said in a statement that all employees go through regular training on its patient privacy policies and that any breaches are taken very seriously.
‘Employees who violate these privacy rules, despite being educated, are subject to disciplinary action including suspension or termination,’ the statement said.
‘As soon as we learned of this potential breach, we immediately placed this employee under administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.’
A litigation attorney told CBS Miami that patients have an expectation of privacy in a hospital – which Samuels breached.
