By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A former nurse at Roosevelt Hospital is suing the facility, claiming that her supervisors launched a harassment campaign to fire her after she spoke up about the death of a homeless man she said was denied care.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Danna Novak, a nurse who'd worked triage in Roosevelt's emergency room since 2006, claims that her supervisors encouraged a homeless man who had overdosed on morphine in August 2009 to leave the hospital.
The man, identified by the Daily News as Daniel Iverson, was found dead the next morning near a hot dog cart outside of the emergency room doors at 1000 10th Ave., the suit said.
When he arrived at the emergency room, Iverson allegedly told Novak that he'd taken 700 milligrams of morphine and said, "I'm tired of my life," the lawsuit alleged.
Novak said that she immediately tried to get the man to the resuscitation room but that her nursing supervisor told her Iverson, known in the emergency room as an alcoholic, was manipulative and lying and that he would have to wait to meet with a doctor, according to the suit.
Despite the hospital's account that Iverson died of "natural causes," the lawsuit said an autopsy performed by the Medical Examiner's office determined Iverson died of an overdose.
Novak claimed that her supervisor, who was also named in the suit, had told her that while the hospital had located the man's relatives, they weren't going to contact them because they could potentially sue the hospital for a large sum of money.
Iverson's relatives said the hospital withheld information on the circumstances of his death, the News reported.
"No one mentioned that he had been in the hospital earlier and not gotten care," Robert Walford, Iverson's half-brother, told the News.
Following Iverson's death, Novak said her supervisors first tried to force her out before firing her for an attendance violation in January.
Hospital spokesman Jim Mandler disputed the claim, saying, "We plan to vigorously fight her court suit."
