A nurse with Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center filed a complaint with state and federal agencies that accused the hospital of retaliating against him after he opposed the renaming of the hospital and raised patient safety concerns.
Here are five things to know:
1. Sasha Cuttler, PhD, RN, filed complaints with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the California Labor Commissioner's Office Jan. 8. Dr. Cuttler, who has worked at the hospital intermittently since 1987 and is an assistant professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing, argued the hospital would face greater privacy threats to patient information after its name change. The name change came after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, MD, donated $75 million to the hospital in 2015.
2. In 2016, Dr. Cuttler began raising questions about an increased risk of patient falls as staff levels decreased, and claimed the hospital didn't accurately collect and report fall and injury data, according to the complaints.
3. Dr. Cuttler accused the hospital of retaliating against his claims by removing him from its institutional review board and his leadership role with the hospital's Falls Task Force. He also claims Zuckerberg hospital denied him 15 transfer and promotional opportunities, and that the retaliatory behavior continues today.
4. Zuckerberg hospital spokesperson Brent Andrew responded to the allegations in an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review: "We were not informed of these complaints by the employee and have not been officially informed of these complaints by the agencies contacted and, therefore, have not seen them. Pending a thorough review, we will have no statement on the substance of these claims. ZSFG follows all applicable federal, state and local labor laws and does not retaliate against employees under any circumstances. We will cooperate fully with all investigations into this matter."
5. Dr. Cuttler is not alone in protesting the hospital's name. In November, a San Francisco politician began attempting to remove Mr. Zuckerberg's name from the hospital despite his donation. The attempts came after a protest in May by nurses at the hospital who called on hospital officials to consider changing the facility's name after news broke of Facebook's involvement with Cambridge Analytica, a company that allegedly harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent and used that information for political purposes.
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