A Washington state children’s hospital has fired more than a dozen nurses and punished another after 12-year-old Sarah Niyimbona took her own life at the facility.
According to the Spokesman-Review, Niyimbona was brought to the emergency room many times in 2024 due to suicide attempts. The outlet said the middle schooler died on April 13 after sneaking out of her room at Providence Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital in Spokane and jumping from the fourth floor of a parking garage.
The hospital allegedly removed essential safety measures despite her history of self-harm, including an around-the-clock sitter, a video monitor, and a door alarm, and failed to adequately oversee her the night she died, according to Investigate West, citing a lawsuit filed by the family.
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“I ask what happened. How come she left the room without anybody seeing her? How come she walked all the way to the elevator without anybody seeing her?” her mother, Nasra Gertrude, told the outlet.
“They haven’t given me any answer at all. I trusted this hospital to take care of my daughter.”
“We’re confused how this could happen. We also want to know why there wasn’t anyone there at the moment, why there was nobody watching her, and how she was able to leave,” her 19-year-old sister, Asha Joseph, told PBS.
According to the Spokesman-Review, fifteen nurses have been dismissed and another disciplined amid an investigation into how Niyimbona was able to escape her room undetected.
According to hospital officials, the nurses inappropriately accessed Niyimbona’s medical information without being directly involved in her treatment, which might be a breach of the federal health privacy law, HIPAA.
The nurses have filed a grievance against Providence via their union, the Washington State Nurses Association. The nurses’ advocacy group, the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), argues that the terminations were “retaliation” against nurses who talked to the media following Niyimbona’s passing.
According to the WSNA, the concern for patient privacy comes after nurses may have accessed Niyimbona’s medical records following her death. These instances may have only included “hovering” over the girl’s chart from “concerned nurses who worked with that patient,” said WSNA spokesperson Bobbi Nodell.
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The union believes the privacy guaranteed under HIPAA is of the utmost seriousness, but that in crises, nurses outside of the Emergency Department are often “called in to assist with care and provide information related to a patient’s treatment,” he added. HIPAA is a federal law that limits who can look at, receive, or share private health information.
“We reject Providence Sacred Heart’s claims that privacy was violated by nurses who were doing their jobs to assist in efforts to save the life of a 12-year-old girl in the hospital’s care,” WSNA director David Keepnews said.
“Our nurse rep believes these nurses didn’t do anything wrong, but whether that’s a HIPAA violation, I don’t know,” Nodell said.
Jen York, a Providence representative, later told the Spokesman-Review that the terminations were made in order to safeguard patient privacy. York said the hospital examines behavior and takes “appropriate action, including termination of employment, where warranted “.
Niyimbona’s death is still being investigated by the state Department of Health.
Providence told The New York Post that after Niyimbona’s death, it began an internal inquiry and instituted new policies, including suicide risk screening for all patients and procedures for locating missing patients.
A GoFundMe campaign described Niyimbona as a “shining light” who “touched the hearts of everyone she met.”
The site added, “Over the past year, Sarah bravely fought a long battle with her mental health, spending countless months in and out of hospital facilities, seeking the care and treatment she deserved. It had been almost 3 months without having Sarah home before she passed. It’s heartbreaking that the one place that was supposed to keep her safe failed to do so.”
