Prisma Health settles lawsuit after claims of ‘abysmal’ Columbia hospital conditions

Prisma Health has settled a lawsuit with a group of doctors who had accused the health network of “abysmal” conditions at the physicians’ former office.

Court records filed in Richland County this week declared the matter settled through outside mediation, without offering details of the settlement.

Neither Prisma Health nor attorneys for the South Carolina OBGYN Associates immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.

Prisma Health had sued nine obstetricians and gynecologists in 2020 after their practice left its longtime home at Prisma Health Baptist to relocate to Lexington Medical Center. Prisma claimed the move was a violation of the OBGYN group’s lease.

SC OBGYN responded in court filings that its decision to leave had been based on “abysmal” conditions at Baptist since the hospital became part of Prisma Health’s regional health care system, citing poorly maintained facilities and inexperienced staff.

The doctors had, “in horror, observed Baptist hospital recede into a third-tier facility plagued by astonishing lapses in patient care, cleanliness, and unsafe hospital conditions,” a filing responding to Prisma Health’s suit said. The conditions were “caused, on information and belief, by Prisma Health’s drive to cut costs, increase profits and pay senior executive exorbitant compensation.”

On several occasions, the doctors allege, Baptist Hospital turned away pregnant patients because the hospital didn’t have the staff to care for them. A patient needing emergency surgery for a high-risk ectopic pregnancy lost blood for more than an hour because no operating room nurses were available to assist doctors with the surgery, according to the filing.

Representatives of the hospital system disputed that assessment at the time, citing high marks from the Joint Commission, a national hospital accrediting agency, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Prisma Health contended the doctors were always aware the hospital does not staff its operating rooms 24/7, and instead nurses and surgical technicians would be on call “within 30 minutes.”

Doctors James Stands, M. Tucker Laffitte III, Mark Salley, David Holladay, Thomas Giudice, Robert Grumbach, Rebecca Ridenhour, Christopher Hutchinson and Courtney Brooks had a collective 50-plus years of experience, treated hundreds of patients and delivered about 800 babies every year at Baptist Hospital, The State previously reported.

Prisma Health had sought $312,439.13 in back pay on the lease as well as attorneys’ fees. Although S.C. OB-GYN was an independent practice, it was housed on Prisma Health-Midlands’ campus, and the doctors used Baptist Hospital on Taylor Street for births.

The hospital responded to the suit by claiming the doctors were only motivated by financial gain in jumping to Lexington Medical Center.

“The SC OB-GYN doctors chose to relocate their practice from the preeminent labor and delivery hospital in the Midlands to the campus of a lower ranked competitor hospital for one simple reason - MONEY,” the hospital’s attorneys wrote in a court filing.

Baptist Hospital is part of the Prisma Health network, which also includes Prisma Health Richland and Prisma Health Baptist Parkridge in the Columbia area. Prisma Health was formed in 2017 when the former Palmetto Health of Columbia merged with the Greenville Health System.