I have had time to think about the events of Friday afternoon when Judge Wendy Shoob called an emergency hearing to unseal the case files of Grady whistleblower Dr. James Murtagh.

I mentioned in my earlier message that Murtagh had recently been sanctioned by the court, apparently for violating the secrecy provisions of the agreement settling his original whistleblower retaliation case.

What I did not mention — because I did not fully appreciate its significance at the time – was the suggestion Friday by lawyers for Grady and Emory that Murtagh be thrown in jail for what they believed were violations of the secrecy agreement in the last 48 hours.

Grady and Emory accused Murtagh of telling the AJC about the the legislative motion to unseal the case files.  They also accused him of being “behind” former Grady trustee William Loughrey’s request that I try to get the records unsealed.

Well, I am the one who told the AJC about the motion to unseal the records.  We gave a copy of our motion and brief — which were public documents — to James Salzer of the AJC.  I also wrote an email to the AJC editorial board members asking for their support of our effort to unseal the records, which they begrudgingly gave in their Friday morning edition. 

As for Bill Loughrey, who was a Grady trustee at the time the original whistleblower suit was filed and settled, he has been telling me for weeks that he was kept completely in the dark about the litigation and that he thought it “outrageous” that it had been settled under seal. Today he told me that he was stunned to learn about the size of the payment to Murtagh – $1.6 million — and the fact that it included tax dollars.

But what surprised him most was that Grady was trying to jail Murtagh for allegedly having talked with him.  He said he had not talked to Murtagh but could not believe that the Grady would try to jail the man if he had.

Everyone knows that Grady has problems.  How can the trustees be expected to solve them if doctors or former doctors of the hospital can be jailed for talking with them?  Who exactly is ”Grady” if not the trustees appointed to run it?  Why on earth would “Grady” enter into a settlement that makes it a jailable offense for a doctor or former doctor to communicate with its trustees — without the trustees apparently even knowing about it?   And why, with all of its problems, would “Grady” be spending legal fees trying to jail a former doctor for allegedly talking to one of its own trustees?

As I have said from the moment I entered this debate, Grady is important to Georgia, and I am committed to trying to save it.  Virtually every dollar Grady receives already comes from the taxpayer, either federal, state or county.  It is becoming increasingly clearer to me that Grady’s problems go well beyond a lack of money.  Grady suffers from a culture of secrecy that would be destructive to any organization but is wholly unacceptable for a taxpayer funded institution.

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