St. Clair County nurses are speaking up. County leaders aren’t listening.

My fellow St. Clair County Health Department nurses and I work hard to uphold public health principles and provide much-needed services that our community relies on.

But lately, the department has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

That’s because my fellow nurses and I have been trying to rid our workplace of intimidation, harassment and retaliation – only to be disregarded by the elected officials who run our county.

It’s been a long journey to get to this point.

We followed internal rules to report the cause of this toxic work environment – the conduct of medical director Dr. Remington Nevin.

Two years ago, a panel of county officials recommended the Board of Commissioners arrange an external investigation into multiple employee complaints. County Human Resources called the situation with Nevin “untenable.”

Months went by. Tired of waiting, we – along with many community members – spoke at commission meetings this summer and laid out the need for an independent, impartial investigation and protection from further retaliation.

We contend that Nevin’s behavior toward employees violated multiple county policies. Outside partners also raised issues with his conduct.

Instead of addressing this crisis, commissioners chose to negotiate a new contract with Nevin giving him more authority and money. They claimed they could not act because the complaints were mostly filed anonymously, blaming employees because we followed the county-approved process.

So, we compiled 42 signed complaints from department workers – nurses and non-nurses, union and non-union, dating from two years ago to as recently as last month – and submitted them to the board.

Again delaying, the commissioners gave the complaints to an attorney to evaluate.

This produced a flawed process and a wholly inadequate report:

• The attorney works for the same firm defending Nevin and the county in court. This involves a state-level allegation of retaliation against a health department nurse. That’s a conflict of interest; of course the attorney won’t recommend an investigation against a client. At the least, she appears to have framed the issues in a way that got the answers county commissioners wanted.
• The multiple allegations of retaliation were completely ignored. The county’s attorney didn’t even use the word “retaliation” in her verbal summary and only mentioned it in her written report to say that many employees stated they were afraid of retaliation.
• The report didn’t fulfill its stated goal. We were directed to share complaints about Nevin’s violations of county policies, which we did. Indeed, the county attorney’s report states she was asked to evaluate whether the board “should retain an external investigator to determine whether violations of County policies … occurred.” Yet later she admits she reviewed only whether Nevin broke the law.

It wasn’t the fair, unbiased review county employees were promised, and it wasn’t the review we deserved.

The report and commissioners’ discussion of it implied that nurses and other staff are to blame for the department’s “dysfunction.” Let’s be clear: the “dysfunction” in the department lies solely with Nevin’s behavior.

This is not a matter of whether people disagree about policy. Opinions are separate from behavior – and, in a healthy work environment, professionals can discuss concerns and ask questions without retaliation.

That is especially true of nurses, who have an obligation to speak up for our patients. We need a safe environment in which to do that.

The county-paid attorney concluded by recommending a workplace consultant for the department, focusing on what one commissioner deemed “teamwork.”

St. Clair County defers decision on investigating health director facing workplace complaints

In dismissing the 42 signed complaints, commissioners pointed out that Dr. Nevin was placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) on Sept. 2. That was related to his undisputed comment about having a “grenade launcher in my pants.”

That toothless plan is related to a single incident, which appears to be the one of the few complaints that has actually been investigated. No one – not Human Resources, not commissioners, not a neutral party – has investigated all the 42 signed complaints spanning two years. We know because many employees tell us they haven’t been interviewed.

And there is already a new complaint alleging that Nevin retaliated against an employee, violating his PIP.

Yet the County Administrator has told us the 42 signed complaints have been “reviewed” and that the focus needs to be “forward looking.”

Is all this just going to be swept under the rug?

We need public officials who stand up for public employees. Too often, what we get instead is elected leaders who excuse bad behavior. This is an egregious example of that.

County officials refuse to support St. Clair County Health Department employees – the vast majority of which are women. Instead, they protect and enable a man who abuses his power to belittle the people around him and make it hard to do our jobs. In this way, it seems that public health is under attack in more ways than one.

We applaud community members who have engaged in fact-finding and advocacy alongside us, using the Freedom of Information Act to make up for the county’s lack of transparency, and we encourage them to continue.

Nurses will keep doing our jobs with professionalism and dedication. We will keep respectfully standing up for ourselves, each other and our community.

We will cooperate with any department consultant – knowing it is an ineffective and inappropriate step. But we deserve a voice in choosing a consultant and determining what “consultation” looks like.

In the meantime, this is the message we want people, especially younger people and other women, to hear: It is not OK for a man to use his power to mistreat people, and it’s wrong to blame the victims of his conduct and expect them to fix it.

I don’t want this to be normalized for my daughters or for anyone else’s. So when people ask if all this has been worth it, my answer is yes.

Because it’s always worth speaking up and doing what’s right.