A Muslim couple filed a $20,000 lawsuit earlier this month against Oregon Health & Science University claiming they were ushered out of a waiting room because of Islamophobia, but they’re now reconsidering their lawsuit.
An attorney for Heiam Khdaier and Khalid Alshujery said his clients received no explanation why they were escorted out of a waiting area with their 11-year-old son and forced to wait in a small bathroom before their son was admitted for eye surgery in December 2015.
Khdaier and Alshujery immigrated from Iraq. They suspected they were being discriminated against because of their Muslim faith: Khdaier was wearing a hijab, and the receptionist frowned at Alshujery, according to their lawsuit. They also filed a complaint with state investigators.
But this week, the family learned OHSU had a reason for isolating them: fear of a cockroach infestation.
OHSU has a policy of asking incoming patients if they’ve been in contact with cockroaches, bed bugs or other pests in their homes, according to OHSU’s explanation filed with state investigators.
The Khdaier-Alshujery family had answered yes: Their Portland home had recently been treated for cockroaches and they still noticed an occasional cockroach scurrying about, according to the state investigative file.
So OHSU said it quarantined them.
Yunus Paisner, a Portland attorney representing the family, said OHSU failed to respond to a 30-day demand letter that he’d sent to settle the case before filing the lawsuit. He filed the lawsuit Dec. 14.
But Paisner said he hadn’t known until this week about a March filing by OHSU with the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries that included the explanation. State investigators ultimately sided in favor of OHSU, finding a lack of evidence backing the family’s claims of discrimination.
Paisner said he spoke Thursday with an OHSU attorney and is trying to promptly settle the case. He faults OHSU for what he thinks is a lack of communication and poor handling of his clients -- leaving them humiliated.
According to the lawsuit, the family’s English-speaking skills are limited and Khdaier and Alshujery had no idea why they were directed to wait in the bathroom at OHSU’s Casey Eye Institute.
No other patients or families in the main waiting area had been singled out, the suit says. Khdaier, Alshujery and their son remained in the bathroom for about 15 minutes, before going back to the main waiting area.
Their son’s surgeon and later the director of pre-operative services apologized, according to the suit.
Contacted by The Oregonian/OregonLive, an OHSU spokeswoman declined to comment about details of the case, but offered a general statement:
“OHSU does not tolerate discrimination of any kind. All employees, volunteers and students must treat everyone with the same respect and consideration, regardless of their religious beliefs or non-beliefs. Additionally, OHSU does not restrict or control the free exercise of beliefs, thoughts or ideas.”
In OHSU’s explanation to state investigators, OHSU lawyer Carey Critchlow wrote that the hospital initiated its policy in 2010 of asking incoming patients about cockroaches, bed bugs and other pests. It followed a “significant incident in the main hospital ... because bedbugs from patient belongings stored in the area contaminated the hospital wing,” she said.
“This situation resulted in the hospital expending a great deal of resources (time, money) to close the area with containment walls, relocation of staff, and removal of some of the sheetrock and carpet,” Critchlow wrote.
In 2013, two patients at the Casey Eye Institute answered “yes” to the question. In 2014, one did. In 2015, that number had grown to 10, Critchlow said.
The quarantine protocol calls for staff to give those patients an information packet and to tape off any furniture the patient or family members might have used for the hospital’s “Environmental Services” workers to clean.
In this case, OHSU employees didn’t take the parents’ clothes -- including Khdaier’s hijab -- and force them to wear paper gowns as the protocol typically calls for, Critchlow said.
An employee told the parents about the pest-infestation policy but didn’t give them the information packet so as not to make them “uncomfortable,” Critchlow wrote. Employees also recognized the bathroom wasn’t an appropriate waiting space and moved them to a pre-operative bay room, she said.
The lawsuit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court and seeks $10,000 each in for their humiliation and embarrassment.