RUTLAND — Dartmouth-Hitchcock has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a former fertility specialist who alleged that she was wrongfully terminated as a result of her disability and for blowing the whistle on what she called “questionable medical practices” in the Lebanon-based health system’s Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility program.
In its Jan. 29 motion in U.S. District Court in Rutland for summary judgment, D-H said that Dr. Misty Blanchette Porter, who lived in Norwich at the time of the filing of the lawsuit, was terminated in June 2017 along with the other doctors in the REI program that closed at that time.
D-H said Dr. Ed Merrens, D-H’s chief clinical officer and the main decision-maker in the closing of the program, didn’t know the details of why Blanchette Porter was working on a part-time basis, and with which accommodations, when he made the decision to close the clinic.
“In short, Dr. Porter’s alleged disability had no bearing on Dr. Merren’s decision to terminate her,” D-H said in its filing.
In its filing, D-H said it had to close the fertility program due to a “critical shortage of trained nurses.”
At the time of her firing after more than 20 years at D-H, Blanchette Porter was on long-term disability and was working 20 hours per week with accommodations as the result of an injury sustained in November 2015.
Blanchette Porter, through her suit first filed in October 2017, is seeking to be reinstated as a D-H employee with no loss of seniority, as well as damages and the costs of litigation.
In its filing, D-H said that the head of the OB/GYN department when the fertility clinic closed tried to find Blanchette Porter a part-time post reading gynecologic ultrasounds, but “at the time, there was no business necessity for an additional physician in such a role.”
As part of its motion for summary judgment, D-H asked for oral argument in the case.
Blanchette Porter’s Norwich-based attorney Geoffrey Vitt said D-H’s arguments are one-sided. He disagreed with D-H’s assertions and will file a response by March 6, he said. He expects the case will go to trial in June.
In her suit, Blanchette Porter alleged that the clinic was providing substandard care, participated in fraudulent billing practices, failed to obtain necessary patient consent and, in one case, impregnated a patient when the patient and the sperm were at risk of being exposed to the Zika virus.
D-H spokesman Rick Adams declined to comment this week.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
