SPOKANE, Wash. — The Washington State Nurses Association says it has filed grievances after more than a dozen nurses were fired from Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane over alleged privacy violations.

According to WSNA Executive Director David Keepnews, 15 nurses were terminated and one was disciplined within the past two months following the suicide of a 12-year-old patient at the hospital. The union claims the information accessed by the nurses was directly related to their duties in responding to the incident.

“WSNA and all of our members take the privacy guaranteed under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act with the utmost seriousness,” Keepnews said in a statement. “We reject Providence Sacred Heart’s claims that privacy was violated by nurses who w

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