NJ Psych Facility With 'Atmosphere Of Terror' Owes Ex-Doctor $1M

MORRIS PLAINS, NJ — A former doctor at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital was recently awarded $1 million by a jury after she was retaliated against for whistleblowing on suspected malpractice.

Dr. Margarita Gormus began working at Greystone in 2014. In 2022, she filed a lawsuit against the hospital claiming that her superiors were making the place unsafe, and that she was being punished for speaking out on their actions.

Gormus said her then-superior, Dr. Evaristo Akerele, had made sexual advances on her. An internal investigation was launched, and no wrongdoing was found.

Additionally, she said poor policy from her superiors led to severe consequences for patients, with one hospitalized for eating parts of a radio, and another mistakenly being transferred to a room where another patient killed him.

Gormus’ testimony in a class action lawsuit filed in 2018 following the patient's killing led to a major settlement from the state-run facility. The settlement called for significant upheavals in the hospital's staffing and security policies.

Read More— Doctors Assaulted At Greystone In 'Atmosphere Of Terror': Lawsuit

In response, Akerele assigned Gormus twice the number of patients, totaling 52, many of whom were considered violent and dangerous. Gormus and a jury viewed the added workload as an act of retaliation against her whistleblowing.

A jury awarded Gormus $1 million on March 10. Lawyers representing the hospital asked the court to reconsider its decision to make Greystone pay for Gormus’ legal fees, which will be decided on April 10.

A 2nd Whistleblower

Following the jury’s decision, another former Greystone employee, Dr. Walter Bakun, filed suit against the hospital on March 17.

Bakun also played an instrumental role in the 2018 class action suit against the facility, and believes he, too, was retaliated against for reporting his concerns.

In 2014, seven years after starting work as a physician at Greystone, Bakun began reporting “serious safety, staffing, and medical response deficiencies to Greystone administration,” all of which were ignored, according to the suit.

After noticing a series of concerns, including the elimination of cardiac life support protocols and questionable certification practices, Bakun filed a complaint with the NJ Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health (PEOSH) program.

Bakun’s then-superior, Greystone CEO Teresa McQuaide, "berated" him for filing the complaint and told him to stop it immediately, according to the suit. Bakun refused, and the PEOSH later validated his complaint.

In 2018, according to the suit, a patient was pushed to the floor by another while Bakun was off-duty. When Bakun arrived at work, he examined the patient and determined her physical condition was not incredibly serious.

From then on, Bakun was accused by his superiors of “negligence,” with a state health department finding him guilty of patient neglect later that year. Bakun claims he was not interviewed at all during the course of the department’s investigation.

Nevertheless, Bakun was placed on leave for months as a result of the findings.

Bakun continued to report ongoing “dangerous understaffing and operational failures that placed patients and staff at risk" for years, during which time he was constantly assigned less desirable off-site duties.

In April last year, a 28-year-old patient with suicidal tendencies was found dead in his room. After the body was examined by Bakun, he determined the situation called for a criminal investigation, the suit says.

The suit adds that Bakun’s superiors blamed him for any litigation the hospital might face as a result of the investigation. He was soon accused of “notoriously disgraceful conduct” and fired two months later, an act Bakun believes was one of retaliation.

Despite the court-ordered overhaul in 2020 following the class action suit, it appears Greystone continues to have issues.

Read More: New Year's Eve Murder At Morris County Psych Facility

Nora Locke, who works in the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, also claimed she was demoted from her position because she confronted her former boss about conditions at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.

And several months after the settlement, the Public Defender's Office also claimed a patient choked to death on food that was not in his special diet.

Patch has reached out to the NJ Department of Health, which oversees the facility, and has not heard back at this time.

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