'It is our hope that this settlement...helps those affected achieve a measure of closure.'
Johns Hopkins Health System will hand over $190 million to settle a class action privacy lawsuit involving one of its former gynecologists who secretly recorded video and captured photos of patient examinations.
More than 7,000 patients of Nikita Levy, MD, the former Johns Hopkins physician fired in February of last year, filed suit against the healthcare system back in March 2013 after a hospital employee notified officials that Levy was recording patient examinations, according to a NPR report.
[See also: Massive privacy breach sets records.]
"Johns Hopkins Health System believe is fair and properly balances the concerns of thousands of plaintiffs with obligations the Health System has to provide ongoing" care, read a July 21 statement from the health system. "It is our hope that this settlement," Hopkins officials continued, "helps those affected achieve a measure of closure."
Levy committed suicide back in February 2013 after the allegations of his actions went public.
[See also: Staff blunder leads to HIPAA breach.]
As Jonathan Schochor, one of the attorneys who led the suit against Johns Hopkins, told the Baltimore Sun: "Many of our clients still feel a betrayal and lack of trust and have fallen out of the medical system…They stopped seeing their doctors, they stopped taking their children to doctors. They refused to see male OB-GYNs, or any OB-GYN."
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