Fired doctor files whistleblower suit claiming mishandling of TBI, PTSD cases
Dr. Kernan Manion, Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital psychiatrist, filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming his contract with the hospital was wrongfully terminated in 2009.
LANCE CPL. SCOTT W. WHITING
By AMANDA WILCOX
The Daily News
Published: September 10, 2012
A former Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital psychiatrist who claimed his contract with the hospital was wrongfully terminated in 2009 has recently filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
In the lawsuit, Dr. Kernan Manion, a board certified psychiatrist for more than 25 years, claims he was wrongfully terminated for reporting mishandled cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury at Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune Health Center. He also claims the center lacked the safety protocols necessary to protect those at the base from patients who were diagnosed as potentially violent to themselves or others.
Manion filed the lawsuit against the contracting companies that hired him to work at the hospital: Spectrum Healthcare Resources and Nitelines Kuhana JV LLC.
Manion was hired in early 2009 by Spectrum and Nitelines to provide psychiatric treatment to service members returning from deployment. The suit noted that many of Manion’s patients suffered from PTSD or TBI, and Manion believed he was “under constant pressure from his superior to rate patients as acceptable for deployment ... even in circumstances where patients were diagnosed as posing a violent threat to themselves or others or were dangerous for combat deployment due to the presence of a significant mental illness,” according to the lawsuit
The suit describes two cases in which Manion witnessed violent acts by his patients, one of which recounts a post-deployment Marine who, in a diagnosed psychotic rage, repeatedly karate-punched a table and stormed out of his session. There was “no support available nor even protocol in place to contain or subdue the patient ... or to emergently and safely get him to urgent care,” according to the suit.
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