But she has no health insurance and often sleeps in her car because she can’t afford rent and a security deposit, even though she has been saving for months. She is fearful of staying at a shelter, which she believes will increase her chances of contracting COVID-19 for a second time.
“It does bother me,” the 63-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native said. “It bothers me a lot. I don’t understand how I could work two jobs and still can’t afford an apartment. I either make too much money for help or not enough.”
At 61, Lucía Nunez, who also works as a personal care assistant, commonly known as a home care worker, is in the same position. Nunez, of East Hartford, works 70 hours a week, taking care of three individuals who need help with the daily activities of life, including bathing and meals. Still, she hasn’t had a mammogram in four years.
“I can’t remember the last time I went to the doctor for a regular visit,” said Nunez, who also has no health insurance.
Jordan and Nunez are part of a 10,000-member workforce taking care of 6,000 of the state’s most vulnerable residents in their homes, paid by the state Department of Social Services (DSS) and state Department of Developmental Services (DDS) through Medicaid funding.
They are mostly women—predominantly women of color—with no health care benefits, no paid time off, no paid sick days and no path to retirement even as the pandemic has worn on into a third year, said Diedre Murch, director of home care for the New England Heathcare Employees Union, SEIU District 1199.
Cloe Poisson Photo.
Jordan wipes Tracy Lamb’s face while caring for her in Lamb’s apartment. “She makes me happy every time,” said Lamb. “When she goes away, I’m miserable.”
“We are unearthing more and more stories like Dilliner’s and Lucía’s,” Murch said. “The pandemic was like pouring gasoline on the fire that was already burning.”
The workers can’t legally strike to get better pay and benefits because the state has no backup system to take care of their clients, Murch said. The union, DSS and DDS have been in talks for months, even as federal pandemic relief for community care was made available. After a meeting with Gov. Ned Lamont last week, the union is hopeful that a new contract is coming, Murch said, but an agreement has not been reached.
Nunez works Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 3 to 9 p.m. for two people and then every other weekend taking care of a third person. “I’m always working more than 70 hours a week, so I can survive, pay my bills and put food on the table,” she said.
She gets no benefits other than what she calls “holy day pay,” she said.
“If you work on the Fourth of July—that’s a holy day—you get paid time and a half. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid because we have no paid holidays unless we work.”
— Lucía Nunez
She only took a few days off when one of her clients contracted COVID-19 because she couldn’t afford to stop working. Her boyfriend puts gas in her car so she can use that money for food, she said. “Everything is more expensive,” she said.
Jordan works Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. for Tracy Lamb, a 52-year-old West Haven resident with multiple sclerosis who is bedridden and needs help with bathing, dressing and chores around the house.
“She makes me happy every time,” Lamb said. “When she goes away, I’m miserable.
“We have a very good relationship. She bathes me, she leaves the room spotless, she cooks for me, she’ll clean up the house. She never stops. She’s like the Energizer battery.”
Sometimes the two watch television or movies together while Jordan folds the laundry. Lamb said Jordan will go to the store for her on her day off if she needs something. “She always goes above and beyond for me,” Lamb said.
Jordan also works 10 hours on Fridays and 12 hours on Saturdays taking care of a second client on oxygen.
Jordan will sometimes stay overnight at Lamb’s home if it’s cold out. On the other nights, she’ll sleep in her car, she said. She cooks for herself when she cooks for her clients, leaving foods that need to remain cold in their refrigerator.
“I never hide my situation from them,” Jordan said. “When I cook for them, I cook for myself.”
Jordan said she was raised by a mother who believed that people should help their older neighbors or people in need. “I think that’s why I went into this,” Jordan said.
“My mom would send us to go help people. Even though I work six days a week, I spend Sunday going to see a lady who has nobody. I talk to her. We were the help for the elderly when I was a kid.”
She worked for a nursing home in 1987 but found that the job didn’t provide enough time to take care of people the way she felt was necessary, she said. “You need to make sure they are clean. You want to make them happy,” Jordan said. “There were so many residents you couldn’t give them the attention they needed. When I’m doing private duty, I’m able to do that for every one of my clients.”
After working in home care for nearly 30 years, she had moved to South Carolina before the start of the pandemic to spend time with her son and his family, she said. She was able to work less because she lived with his family and was enjoying life, until tragedy struck.
Her son went to the store one day and never returned, she said. He had been shot and killed by the store manager who mistakenly believed he was trying to rob the place, she said. “It was a shock. He just never came back from the store,” Jordan said. “It was very traumatic. He left nine kids. You come to the point where you can’t feel. I was in trauma.”
She sought the help of a therapist through telehealth and then came back to Connecticut to escape the memories of their time together, she said. “I couldn’t stay. I kept seeing him everywhere,” she said.
Since then, she’s been working with Lamb and her other client while trying to avoid catching COVID-19 for a second time. Her first bout in November 2021 left her with lung problems and fatigue, she said. She lost two weeks’ pay while quarantining because, by that point, federal sick time pay for home care workers impacted by COVID-19 had ended.
Jordan said she makes it a point to tell her clients that they still make life worth living even if they are bedridden or have physical challenges. Some days she tries to motivate them even as she’s exhausted from the workload, she said.
“Everybody has a calling,” Jordan said. “It takes a special person to take tender loving care of people. I try to give them a better quality of life. Everyone should have a better quality of life.”
Cloe Poisson photo.
Jordan covers Lamb with a comforter after helping her get back into bed.
John D. Lynch II, MD, was granted a reinstatement by the board in January 2020. Under the terms, Lynch could have started practicing in February 2021, documents said. But by June 2021, a private therapist issued a report to the state Department of Public Health (DPH) indicating that Lynch “was not able to practice medicine with reasonable skill or safety.”
DPH documents also said that since February 2021, Lynch has not attended individual or support group treatment meetings, failed to submit random urine screens and failed to participate in a required clinical skills evaluation. A therapist also reported that that Lynch was off his regular medication for a mental health issue due to the cost and would likely not be able to safely practice unless he resumed the medication, documents said.
In 2012, the board revoked Lynch’s license after he was fired from his job as an emergency department physician with Hartford HealthCare for coming to work smelling of alcohol, documents said.
He now lives in Virginia and was not practicing in Connecticut when the violations of the probation were reported to the DPH, documents said. The board temporarily suspended his Connecticut medical license on Nov. 16 until a hearing on the allegations could take place. It is unclear if he is practicing medicine in Virginia.
Lynch or his attorney did not attend the hearing which took place on Dec. 1, DPH officials said. Under state law, Lynch is considered to have admitted the allegations since he did not respond to the charges or attend the hearing, DPH officials said.
In other business, the board also granted a medical license to a pediatric ophthalmologist who has completed all of the requirements except a two-year graduate medical education program. Mariana Flores, MD, will be working at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.
]]>Dr. Christopher Betz, who works at Starling Physicians, failed to follow the pre-incision protocol and failed to independently verify which knee was the site of the operation prior a procedure that took place at Bristol Hospital on Sept. 14, 2018, according to state Department of Public Health (DPH) documents.
The error wasn’t reported by DPH’s Facility Licensing and Investigations Section (FLIS) to its Practitioner Licensing and Investigations Unit, which investigates complaints against physicians, for the board until July 19, 2019 after Bristol Hospital was the subject of an unannounced inspection by federal health authorities, documents said. Bristol Health reported the medical error as an adverse event on Sept. 21, 2018 to FLIS.
According to a corrective plan based on the federal inspection, Betz also failed to document that he had operated on the wrong knee and failed to note that after he did discover the error, he gave the patient a cortisone shot in the knee that was originally slated for surgery.
Betz has since taken a course in preventing medical errors and near misses in surgery, DPH officials said. Under the discipline approved by the board Tuesday, Betz was fined $5,000 and his license to practice medicine was reprimanded.
In other action, the board temporarily suspended the medical license of Derek Donovan, a physician assistant, after a DPH investigation revealed he had used alcohol and marijuana excessively in the past few years, documents said.
Donovan is also accused of falsifying medical records and intentionally making false written statements provided to DPH staff from June to December 2021, documents said. Donovan also has had an emotional disorder or mental illness since April 2021, DPH officials said.
If the board had not granted the summary suspension, Donovan would have been allowed to continue to practice until a formal consent order with discipline was granted. A panel of three board members will hold a hearing on the allegations on Feb. 25. Following the hearing, the DPH will work with Donovan to determine a resolution that will likely include discipline, officials said.
This story was updated from a previous version to add context on reporting by Bristol Health to DPH.
]]>In a unanimous decision, the board denied Dr. Nami Bayan’s request for reconsideration following a brief hearing Wednesday morning.
Bayan was seeking to have the revocation sent to a hearing on claims that state Department of Public Health (DPH) staff “tampered with evidence” and the board disregarded information that showed he had largely complied with the terms of a two-year suspension, documents show.
“This action is an obvious crime,” said Bayan who added that information on his therapy was “neglected and wrongfully dismissed.”
Bayan’s license to practice medicine was suspended in 2019 and he was ordered to participate in therapy sessions at least twice a month after he exhibited signs of a mental health issue, a disciplinary report said.
But DPH investigators concluded that he had missed several months of required therapy while he was out of the country from July 2020 to March 2021, according to documents.
“It’s not in dispute that Dr. Bayan failed to attend therapy during that lengthy period of time,” said DPH attorney Diane Wilan during Wednesday’s hearing.
“The decision (to revoke his license) was based on his failure to attend therapy and provide reports,” Wilan added.
Bayan did not notify the DPH or seek permission to miss treatment when he went out of the country for nearly eight months, Wilan said.
The board voted Dec. 21 to revoke Bayan’s license, following a hearing on whether he violated the terms of his discipline.
Bayan, a surgeon who worked at H & B Quality Medical Care in Shelton, has been under scrutiny since 2018 when he sent repeated e-mails to DPH indicating he believed the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack based on a report he made, documents said.
The board temporarily suspended his license in December 2018, citing that Bayan “presented a clear and immediate danger to public health and safety.”
Bayan argued in documents and during the hearing on his request for reconsideration that an initial diagnosis from a DPH required mental health examination was erroneous and he had “no sign of a major psychiatric issue and there was no need for intense psychiatric treatment.”
He could challenge the 2018 suspension and the diagnosis by again seeking reconsideration if there were a change in conditions such as new information had come to light, Attorney Kerry Colson with the Office of Attorney General William Tong said.
Bayan could also apply for reinstatement after demonstrating that he attended therapy and was fit to practice, board members said.
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Another physician was also disciplined by the board for failing to act on test results.
Dr. Syed Hadi and Dr. Waile Ramadan both treated a man who was brought to the Bristol Hospital Emergency Department on Jan. 7, 2019 with a high fever and other symptoms of a bacterial infection but never prescribed antibiotics, according to state Department of Public Health (DPH) investigators.
The man died of sepsis two days later, documents said. The case was the subject of a malpractice lawsuit filed against the physicians, Starling Physicians and Bristol Hospital which was settled in 2021. DPH opened an investigation of the case after an inspection found violations at the hospital in 2019, documents said.
The physicians failed to meet the standard of care by not reviewing test results including a positive culture for bacteria, not communicating with other hospital staff and not properly diagnosing the patient, a consent order said.
Hadi and Ramadan both received a $5,000 fine from the board. Both physicians have completed coursework in infection control including the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, communication with other health care providers and documentation standards, documents said.
The board also issued a fine and a permanent restriction on the prescription registration of Dr. Alfred Ranieri, of Medical Associates of New Haven, who prescribed controlled substances several times to two patients without properly determining or documenting the need, documents said.
Ranieri voluntarily gave up his controlled substance registration in July 2020, documents said. The DPH opened an investigation into the allegations in November 2019 after receiving a complaint from the state Department of Consumer Protection Drug Control Division, investigators said.
Under the terms of the discipline approved by the board, Ranieri must pay a $5,000 fine, his drug registration is permanently restricted from prescribing nearly all controlled substances and his Connecticut medical license is reprimanded.
The board also reprimanded the license of a Hartford Healthcare primary care physician who failed to treat a patient’s back pain and irregular urine analysis in 2018, DPH documents said.
Dr. Othman El-Alami treated the patient over the course of two decades but failed to maintain adequate records, failed to act on radiographic and urinalysis test results and failed to adequately treat the patient’s back pain, a DPH investigation found.
El-Alami’s medical license was reprimanded and placed on probation for six months while he completed coursework in proper clinical documentation as part of the discipline issued by the board.
]]>On Dec. 21, the board revoked the medical license of Dr. Nami Bayan, which had been under suspension since May 1, 2019. Bayan’s license to practice medicine was initially suspended for two years and he was ordered to participate in therapy sessions at least twice a month after he exhibited signs of a mental health issue, a disciplinary report said.
In 2018 Bayan, a surgeon who worked at H & B Quality Medical Care in Shelton, had sent repeated e-mails to the state Department of Public Health (DPH) indicating he believed the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack based on a report he made, documents said. The board temporarily suspended his license in December 2018, saying Bayan “presented a clear and immediate danger to public health and safety.”
DPH investigators learned in 2020 that Bayan had violated the terms of the 2019 discipline by failing to show up for therapy sessions over the course of months, documents said. After a hearing on whether Bayan violated the terms of his discipline, the board voted to revoke his license permanently.
The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Michael Imevbore, a pulmonary physician with CT Pulmonary Specialists in New Haven, and required him to pay a $5,000 fine after a DPH investigation found that he failed to check the state’s prescription monitoring and reporting system before writing prescriptions for more than 200 patients between July 2018 and May 2020, documents said.
Imevbore also wrote controlled substance prescriptions for another 70 patients, but only checked the state’s prescription monitoring program for half of them, from May 2020 to November 2020, investigators concluded. Since December of 2020 he has properly used the reporting system, DHP officials said.
Under the consent order approved by the board, Imevbore will be on probation for a year, during which he is required to have 20% of his patient files reviewed for his use of the prescription reporting system. The state Department of Consumer Protection Drug Control Division, which runs the prescription monitoring program, will do two random audits of his compliance with the system in the next year, the order said.
The board also fined three other physicians.
Dr. J. James Bruno II, of Urology Associates in Danbury, was fined $1,000 after he failed to meet the standard of care by not reviewing a scan before he performed a cystoscopy on a patient in 2019 to remove a kidney stone. The scan revealed that the kidney stone had been passed prior to the procedure, documents said. The board also reprimanded Bruno’s license.
Dr. Rania Rifaey, of Avon, was fined $1,000 after injecting numbing medication and other drugs used to treat inflammation on the wrong side of a patient suffering from bursitis in October of 2018, documents said. Rifaey’s license was also reprimanded.
Dr. Murray Wellner was fined $1,000 and his license placed on probation for nine months after an investigation found that he had used illegible handwriting to document the files of at least three patients from 2013 to 2020, according to DPH.
During the probationary period, Wellner, a West Hartford physician, will have to undergo a review of 20% of his patient files to check for legibility, the consent order said. Wellner had been previously disciplined by the board in 2011 after an investigation revealed he had inappropriately prescribed a drug to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder for eight patients who didn’t need the treatment.
The board also reprimanded the Connecticut license of a physician who was disciplined by California authorities for diagnosing and treating patients through telehealth without proper assessment and evaluation, documents said.
Dr. Ho Dzung Anh, a physician practicing in California, was disciplined in California after he prescribed antibiotics for two undercover investigators posing as telehealth patients, documents said. Anh holds medical licenses in several states, the DPH said.
]]>The board also disciplined a neurologist for his prescribing habits and supported a plan to reinstate the medical license of a former Madison physician who was convicted of criminal drug charges.
In 2012, the board revoked the medical license of John D. Lynch II, a former emergency department physician with Hartford HealthCare, after he was fired for coming to work smelling of alcohol, state Department of Public Health (DPH) documents said.
The board reinstated Lynch’s license in January 2020 and in February 2021 Lynch could have resumed practicing medicine in Connecticut under a three-year probation with certain conditions, including that he continue to seek alcohol abuse treatment, submit to random urine screens and attend private and group treatment.
In June, a private therapist issued a report to the agency indicating that Lynch “was not able to practice medicine with reasonable skill or safety.” DPH documents also said that since February, when the probationary period began, Lynch has not attended individual or support group treatment meetings, failed to submit random urine screens and failed to participate in a required clinical skills evaluation.
Lynch’s license is now under temporary suspension until a hearing takes place on Dec. 1. DPH said Lynch has been living in Virginia and not practicing in Connecticut.
In other action, the board supported DPH’s plan to reinstate the medical license of Scott Houghton of Madison, who was convicted in 2013 of four drug charges, including two counts of sale of a narcotic or hallucinogenic.
In taking the action, the board could only support or oppose DPH’s plan. They could not be the authority that determines whether or not his medical license is reinstated since he currently does not hold a license and he was never formally disciplined, agency officials said.
Houghton pleaded guilty to the criminal charges under the Alford Doctrine. Under the plea, defendants do not admit guilt but concede that the state has enough evidence to gain a conviction.
Houghton did not renew his medical license in 2011 as the criminal case was pending.
In a proposed order for Houghton’s reinstatement DPH presented numerous allegations against him, including that he failed to monitor several patients for whom he had prescribed opiates and, in one case, accepted free meals and lodging at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos from a patient.
DPH investigators found that Houghton continued to write prescriptions after his controlled substance registration was suspended and found he failed to adequately examine elderly patients for whom he had prescribed opiates, documents said. Houghton also illegally gave patients prescriptions for methadone to treat addiction, investigators said.
Houghton denies all of the allegations listed by DPH investigators, but he admitted that he was convicted of four drug offenses in 2013, documents said. He was sentenced to a five-year probation in the criminal cases.
Houghton successfully completed the five-year criminal probation and has agreed to practice under several restrictions, including a prohibition from writing prescriptions for controlled substances, and he must practice in a setting with at least one other licensed physician, documents said.
He also must attend coursework on ethics and boundaries with patients, according to the order. His license will be reprimanded as part of the order, documents said. He is also required to pass a skills evaluation and an exam before the DPH will reinstate his license, officials said.
The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Arjuna Mannam, who practices neurology for Trinity Health of New England and had prescribed a toxic amount of Dilantin to a patient who was being treated for a painful facial nerve condition, documents said. The patient complained to DPH about the treatment, which took place in September 2019, documents said. Mannam’s license is on probation for six months during which he is required to take coursework in prescribing practices.
]]>Connecticut’s board averaged about 13 serious disciplinary actions a year in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to Public Citizen. The rankings are based on the number of serious disciplinary actions taken by states per 1,000 physicians. Connecticut’s rate was .65 per 1,000 physicians compared to Kentucky, which had the highest rate of serious disciplinary actions at 2.29 per 1,000 physicians, the report said. Public Citizen defines a “serious disciplinary action” as one that has a clear impact on a physician’s ability to practice.
The medical boards, which oversee the discipline of physicians in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, are largely unfunded or under-funded, are not adequately staffed, are reactive to complaints rather than initiating proactive investigations, and have little oversight by state officials or legislators, the report said.
“They are not doing what they are mandated to do,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, founder and senior advisor of the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group and one of the authors of the report. “So, what is happening is they are leaving tens of thousands of patients exposed to doctors who shouldn’t be practicing.”
Complaints filed against physicians in Connecticut can take months and sometimes years to investigate and adjudicate. In one recent case, a psychiatrist was allowed to practice while a 2018 complaint was investigated and discipline negotiated on allegations that he had failed to monitor a patient on Lithium and failed to keep the patient’s records during the period under review. His case was settled in June with a $10,000 fine and 18 months of probation.
Attorney Kathryn Emmett, the chair of the Connecticut board, said that the Public Citizen report doesn’t reveal the whole picture. Emmett said she couldn’t speak for the entire board but noted that comparing states by the number of disciplines issued wasn’t the best way to assess their effectiveness.
“I think that the idea that the greatest number of serious disciplines can be used is faulty,” Emmett said. “I don’t think it shows whether the board is accomplishing its goal of protecting the public.”
But at least two public members of the board share the national advocacy group’s concerns. Jean Rexford, who has been a board member for more than a decade and founded the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, told the board during its May meeting that she wanted to look at whether it was doing enough to address the safety of the public.
“I think the legislation that chartered us was many, many years ago,” Rexford said. “Is it time to take a look at that and bring it up to 2021? Do we need to have better consideration of transparency? I’ve been feeling incredibly powerless on Zoom [where the meetings are now conducted] but also powerless in our role in protecting the public,” Rexford said before suggesting that a committee of board members examine “how we could keep current and do a better job.”
Rexford’s comments prompted the creation of a working group, which met in private for the first time on Sept. 28. The state Department of Public Health (DPH) contends that the meetings are administrative and not open to the public. The Connecticut Health Investigative Team has filed a complaint with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission on the denial of access to the working group meetings.
Med Board’s Composition And Role
The med board’s composition—which includes physicians, attorneys, and public members—and its duties are laid out in a decades-old law that has been periodically updated. The board has no funding and no staff of its own. Any fines collected from disciplined physicians go into state coffers. All staff members are DPH employees who also deal with complaints against other professions. The board has no independent investigatory or policy-making powers, according to the statute.
The DPH’s Practitioner Licensing and Investigations Section reviews complaints filed against physicians. The same investigators deal with complaints filed against dozens of other professions, including nurses, hair and nail salons, and veterinarians.
There are 18 full-time investigators within the unit who work on 1,200 to 1,500 complaints a year, said Section Chief Christian Andresen. There is also a hearing process for physicians who contest the charges. The agency receives about 450 complaints about physicians a year that result in an average of 43 disciplines a year, DPH officials said.
The DPH hires medical consultants to determine if a physician facing a complaint has met the standard of care or has participated in activities that could be harmful to patients, Andresen said. The range of complaints that come before the medical examining board includes physicians practicing while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, physicians failing to diagnose serious illness accurately, physicians practicing with a serious mental illness, or physicians prescribing to patients without adequate oversight or controls.
Michele Jacklin, a public member of the med board, said the board is “impotent and toothless” compared to medical boards in other states. “Other boards have budgets, publish newsletters and conduct seminars,” Jacklin said during an interview. “The Connecticut Medical Examining Board is totally reactive.”
Jacklin’s concerns range from no orientation process for new board members to the range of fines that can be issued as a discipline, she said.
“Other states routinely issue fines as high as $50,000,” Jacklin said. “In Connecticut, often the penalties are $1,000 to $5,000, which is a slap on the wrist for a physician.”
State statute limits the fines for physician discipline to $25,000.
There are no staff members who can monitor state or national medical issues that may arise, including checking social media for state physicians who are spreading misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines, officials said.
Although a DPH spokesperson said the agency would investigate all complaints related to misinformation about COVID-19, it took more than five weeks for Andresen to act on an anonymous tip that a retired Durham physician was issuing fraudulent exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines and masks to anyone who sent her a self-addressed stamped envelope, documents showed.
Since the complaint against Sue McIntosh was made anonymously, it took five weeks to “triage” before it was presented to Andresen to investigate, DPH officials said.
The board unanimously voted to suspend McIntosh’s medical license on Sept. 24. A few days later, the DPH alerted all long-term care facilities in the state, which require staff to be vaccinated, to review their employees’ COVID-19 vaccine exemptions to see if McIntosh had signed any.
The DPH has declined to provide any information on whether McIntosh had given exemptions to long-term care employees or any state employees, who are also mandated to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The board unanimously agreed to drop the charges against McIntosh last week after she voluntarily relinquished her medical license.
Under the current system, board members have no idea how many complaints have been filed, the substance of the complaints, or how many complaints have been dismissed, Jacklin said. “The discipline is negotiated by DPH attorneys and then what comes to us is a consent order,” she said. “We basically can’t ask any questions or get any other information other than what is in the consent order. All we can do is reject the consent order or rubber-stamp it.”
In general, the board focuses on approving disciplines that educate and monitor physicians so that they improve and provide better care, Emmett said. “I don’t think there’s good data to support that more discipline results in better care for the community,” Emmett added.
But the board could be doing more to protect the public by providing orientation for all board members and by being kept up to date on state legislative happenings and national policy changes, Rexford and Jacklin said.
Rexford said other state boards moved to pass legislation based on a national workgroup report on physician sexual misconduct. “I just feel as if we are missing the boat when I hear that and when I see what other groups are doing,” Rexford said. “At the very least, I would like Chris [Andresen] to attend meetings, I would like everybody to attend an orientation and I would like to feel that we were all working as a team.”
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Open in new tab Sue McIntosh, a retired former physician, will not face any discipline and will not be able to practice medicine unless she seeks a formal reinstatement before the board, state Department of Public Health (DPH) officials said.
The board’s vote was unanimous. The board did not discuss the case before the vote other than a comment by Chair Kathryn Emmett who said since McIntosh had voluntarily surrendered her license, “there was no license to reprimand.”
McIntosh was accused of deviating from the standard of care by failing to properly diagnose or examine people who she issued signed exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines and masks. The state said that McIntosh failed to build a patient and physician relationship with those who requested the exemptions, failed to obtain their medical history and failed to comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines by providing advice that was harmful to the public.
The board suspended McIntosh’s medical license on Sept. 24 after a brief (DPH) investigation revealed that she was providing signed exemptions to anyone who sent a self-addressed, stamped envelope to her Durham address, agency documents said.
The exemption paperwork that McIntosh would mail back included explanations of what various exemptions would be, such as cancers, autism disorders, autoimmune disorders and others, and how to fill out the exemption paperwork, documents said.
“You may copy and distribute as many forms as you wish to anyone,” the instructions provided by McIntosh said. “Keep blank copies for yourself for future use.” She ended the instructions with “Let freedom ring!” the documents said.
DPH officials recommended that the board withdraw the charges on the grounds “the continued prosecution of the case is unnecessary, and it is in the interests of administrative economy to terminate proceedings.”
McIntosh voluntarily surrendered her license on Oct. 1, before a hearing could be held on the state charges.
In July, the Federation of State Medical Boards warned physicians that they could face disciplinary action by their own state medical boards for spreading disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. DPH officials said in early September that any complaints about COVID-19 vaccine misinformation would be investigated. The DPH received an anonymous tip that McIntosh was mailing people exemptions on July 30.
Due to the nature of the allegations, the DPH sent out an advisory requiring all long-term care facilities to review exemptions to determine if any staff required to be vaccinated had received an exemption from McIntosh. The DPH did not provide information if the investigation uncovered widespread fraudulent exemptions. No one on the board asked about the number of exemptions during the meeting.
The board also agreed Tuesday to place a Yale School of Medicine psychiatry resident on probation for two years and reprimand the license of a Florida physician disciplined by Iowa health authorities for prescribing medication for telehealth patients by reviewing online questionnaires.
Dr. Darja Djordjevic, a psychiatry resident at the Yale School of Medicine, has an emotional or mental health disorder that could impact her ability to safely treat patients, DPH documents said. Under a consent order approved Tuesday, Djordjevic must seek therapy during probation and provide the agency with quarterly reports from her employer that indicate whether or not she is practicing medicine safely. She cannot enter into her own private practice until her probation is complete, the order said.
The board also reprimanded the Connecticut license of Dr. Alexandar Jovanovich who had been disciplined by the Iowa Board of Medicine for prescribing medications without establishing valid professional relationships with telehealth patients.
Jovanovich, who is now a Florida resident providing health consultant services, would issue the prescriptions based on online questionnaires, DPH officials said. While Jovanovich held a Connecticut medical license, he never practiced medicine or telemedicine in Connecticut, documents said.
Since the Iowa discipline, Jovanovich has allowed his medical licenses in 32 states to lapse and he does not plan on renewing his Connecticut license which expired in May, DPH officials said.
The board also agreed to reinstate the license of a Vernon physician who practiced cardiology and internal medicine before retiring in 2018 due to family circumstances, officials said.
Dr. Ali Shakibai has recently taken the required amount of education credits to resume work as a physician, DPH officials said.
]]>Dr. Susan McIntosh was being investigated by the DPH after she was accused of allowing people to mail her Durham practice a self-addressed, stamped envelope to receive signed exemptions, the DPH said. Her license to practice medicine and surgery was suspended by the state Medical Examining Board until a hearing scheduled for Oct. 5, officials said. It’s uncertain whether that hearing will go forward.
The medical board had agreed on Sept. 24 to temporarily suspend McIntosh’s license.
The exemption paperwork that McIntosh mailed to people included explanations of what various exemptions would be, such as cancers, autism disorders, autoimmune disorders and others, and how to fill out the exemption paperwork, documents said.
“You may copy and distribute as many forms as you wish to anyone,” the instructions provided by McIntosh said. “Keep blank copies for yourself for future use.” She ended the instructions with “Let freedom ring!” the DPH documents said.
The DPH received an anonymous tip on July 30 that McIntosh was allowing the general public, including people who she had never seen as patients before, to receive the exemptions, documents said.
A section chief with the DPH’s investigation unit learned of the complaint on Sept. 10, an affidavit said. The next day Christian Andresen, the section chief, sent McIntosh a self-addressed stamped envelope using his home address, he confirmed in the signed affidavit.
On Sept. 16 he received a packet from McIntosh that included signed exemption forms and instructions on how to use them, the investigator said. The paperwork included exemptions for receiving COVID-19 vaccines, exemptions for wearing masks to combat the spread of COVID-19, exemptions for receiving vaccines in general, and exemptions for receiving routine COVID testing which is sometimes required of people who have not been vaccinated.
The DPH issued a motion for summary suspension of McIntosh’s license, and the medical board voted unanimously during an emergency meeting Sept. 24 to suspend her license until Oct, 5, officials said. Under the suspension, she was not allowed to practice medicine until at least Oct. 5.
According to the DPH documents, McIntosh deviated from the standard of care by failing to properly diagnose or examine people who had been given the exemptions. She also failed to build a patient and physician relationship with those who requested the exemptions, failed to obtain their medical history, and failed to comply with Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) guidelines by providing advice that was harmful to the public.
McIntosh did not respond to a request for comment. At the hearing, the DPH could have recommended a variety of disciplines, including a fine, probation with restrictions and education requirements, or the revocation of her Connecticut license to practice medicine.
In July, the Federation of State Medical Boards warned physicians that they could face disciplinary action by their own state medical boards for spreading disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
Physicians have “an ethical and professional responsibility to practice medicine in the best interests of their patients and must share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health,” the federation said in the warning.
Christopher Boyle, DPH spokesman, said in September that if the agency receives a complaint that a physician was spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, the Practitioner Investigation Unit will investigate.
To read Lisa Backus’ previous story on this issue go here.
Scroll through the DPH documents on this case below.
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