A South Florida nurse filed a lawsuit this week against the doctor she claims gave her COVID-19, NBC Miami reported. Nurse Venice Jean-Baptist works with Dr. Joseph Piperato, her boss, at Project Access Foundation clinic on Biscayne and 80th Street. She said Dr. Piperato was coughing at the office after he attended a Winter Party. This happened back in March, when the novel coronavirus started surging.
The nurse also claimed the doctor didn't take her concerns seriously when they spoke. “He said you’re overreacting, and he walked by me in the hallway and he breathed on me. He said if I have the virus, now you have it too,” Jean-Baptist said. Soon after their exchange over COVID-19 that day, the nurse was in the hospital on oxygen. She tested positive for the disease by the end of March.
“I couldn’t breathe and that’s when they ended up telling me at the hospital, I had COVID-19. I literally just broke down in tears because my lungs were covered with the virus,” she said. Her two-year-old son ended up getting the virus from her, as well.
“I think this could have been prevented. I know that the clinic is responsible,” she said. "He didn’t want anyone to get tested of fear of losing money if the clinic shut down. So, they didn’t want to lose revenue." Jean-Baptist is now on disability, but she's concerned about the patients she was seeing in February and March. Masks weren't mandatory in the facility at the time. “There was nothing in place to protect the staff,” she added.
The nurse is now suing Dr. Piperato and the Project Access Foundation for damages. The lawsuit claims she's still suffering from her battle with COVID-19. “This was purely profits over people,” Leighton said, adding that a business like the clinic should know better. “We have an instruction that not only discouraged employees from wearing PPE, they actually prohibited them from doing that and using COVID test kits.”
Julie Allison, who is representing Piperato, Project Access and other defendants in the suit, sent NBC Miami a statement. The document claimed the allegations were unfounded, and that Project Access "has at all times undertaken the steps necessary to comply with CDC and State guidelines."
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