Nurse claims County school district fired her over student confidentiality

BANGOR – A former nurse for a St. John Valley school district claims she was fired illegally last year for refusing to divulge to school officials or parents requests from high school students for confidential reproductive health care treatment.

Lola C. Charette of Fort Kent last month sued SAD 27 and Superintendent Sandra B. Bernstein in U.S. District Court in Bangor. In addition to a jury trial, she is seeking lost wages and benefits, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees and to be reinstated as the district’s school nurse.

The district includes Fort Kent, Eagle Lake, New Canada, St. Francis, St. John, Wallagrass and Winterville.

Charette, who worked for 20 years as the school nurse in SAD 27, claims that she was fired Jan. 31, 2003, when she refused to tell the superintendent, other school officials and parents why she had taken two female students from Fort Kent High School to a medical appointment.

Melissa Hewey, the Portland attorney representing the district, and Bernstein, denied Tuesday that Charette was fired for refusing to breach student confidentiality. The nurse, according to Hewey, was fired for refusing to follow the rules about taking students off campus for medical appointments.

“From the district’s standpoint,” Hewey said, “the failure to follow this rule was a pattern with her. She was not permitted to take students to medical appointments or dispense prescription medicines. … [The complainant] is taking statements that were made out of context.

“She was fired for taking kids to medical appointments – which was not part of her job – not because she didn’t tell who the kids were,” the attorney said. “She was only allowed take students [to a medical appointment] if it was an emergency and the parents gave permission.”

Attempts to reach Charette’s attorney, David G. Webbert of Augusta, on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The 15-page complaint Webbert filed maintains that state confidentiality laws and state licensing regulations require that nurses not disclose medical information without a patient’s permission.

The students refused to give Charette permission to talk with their parents or school officials about why they were seeking medical treatment, according to the court document.

“[The] superintendent was angry at Ms. Charette for telling the students that their reproductive health care ‘was confidential,'” the complaint states, “and … the superintendent reprimanded Ms. Charette, saying ‘we don’t tell any student that anything is confidential.'”

The lawsuit also alleges that the superintendent fired Charette because she had violated “community norms” when she helped students obtain pregnancy tests and related reproductive medical treatment without parental consent.

The lawsuit was filed Jan. 31, one year after Charette was fired and after she received a “right to sue” letter from the Maine Human Rights Commission. The commissioners were not able to consider the complaint within the required time limit.