Florida nurse fired after mocking baby born with birth defect on social media

MIAMI — A neonatal intensive care nurse in Miami is out of a job after hospital officials discovered that she mocked an infant with a birth defect on her personal social media accounts.

According to WFOR-TV, Sierra Samuels shared photographs of a newborn with gastroschisis, a birth defect of the abdominal wall that causes the baby’s intestines to protrude from the body.

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Lidia Amoretti, a spokesperson for Jackson Memorial Hospital, confirmed in a Saturday email to NBC News that hospital administrators first learned of the incident on Sept. 8.

Samuels was initially placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation over privacy violations, and fired on Sept. 15, Amoretti told the network.

The photos were captioned, “My night was going great then boom!” and “Your intestines posed (sic) to be inside not outside baby,” followed by “#gastroschisis,” WFOR-TV reported.

Posting photos of patients without authorization is often considered a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, intended to protect patients’ medical records and other personal health information, NBC News reported.

The hospital issued a statement, obtained by WFOR-TV, that read, in part, “Employees who violate these privacy rules, despite being educated, are subject to disciplinary action including suspension or termination. As soon as we learned of this potential breach, we immediately placed this employee under administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”

Samuels had worked for Jackson Memorial since 2016, the TV station reported.

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