Tearing at Children's Heart

TEN-YEAR-OLD DARIUS SOLEIMAN didn't know that the operation he was scheduled to have would end his life. All he knew was that it was going to make him normal again, that it would, at last, relieve him of the congenital heart condition that left him unable to keep up with his schoolmates on the playground. He couldn't wait.

He circled the date on his calendar, June 30, 1997, drew up a wish list for gifts after surgery, and invited friends to visit him in the hospital. When the day finally arrived, he was so excited that he woke up his parents at 5:30 in the morning. "It was like the happiest day of his life," says his father, Moe.

Darius never woke up from surgery. After days of waiting, his parents say they were told by the hospital that an air bubble must have accidentally gotten into Darius' circulatory system during the operation and caused brain damage.

His parents' grief was overwhelming, but they blamed fate rather than the hospital, the nationally renowned Children's Hospital and Medical Center, or the surgeon, Flavian Mark Lupinetti, chief surgeon of the hospital's heart center. The Soleimans began to have questions, though, when they received an anonymous letter: one typewritten paragraph sprinkled with grammatical errors.

"I wake up at night thinking of you and how much your grief and loss," the letter began. It went on to make outrageous charges. The Soleimans called the hospital and, when that didn't entirely satisfy their quest for answers, went to a lawyer. According to Darius' parents, the lawyer felt no legal action was appropriate. None of the charges in the letter has ever been substantiated, and the identity of its author remains a mystery.

The mystery extends to dozens of anonymous letters sent over a period of years, first to hospital administrators, then to parents of heart center patients who died, and finally to parents of prospective patients. Like the Soleiman letters, these missives made shocking charges about surgery performed at the heart center and appeared to be from an inside source with access to patient names and details about their cases.

Whether the anonymous letters are the problem or the symptom of a problem is a matter of debate. Either way, they are at the center of an extraordinary drama that has enveloped the heart center and shaken the hospital to its core. "I hope you can understand the intensity of feeling," says Children's Medical Director Richard Molteni. He explains the letters actually talked about the "killing" of child patients. "Parents were petrified and in tears. Referring doctors were unbelievably shocked." In the fall of last year, after the largest barrage of letters yet, the hospital took drastic action to find the letter-writer. It hired private investigators, searched through employee computer files, and covertly obtained a DNA sample of one employee by snatching a bottle from which he had drunk in the cafeteria and comparing the saliva on it to residue on two anonymous communications. "We simply can't have our hospital and our personnel and their reputations torn apart by innuendoes and lies," Molteni says, explaining these unusual steps.

But the hospital's policelike response provoked even more controversy, especially the treatment of the employee unknowingly subjected to DNA testing. That employee was a 10-year veteran of Children's named Donald Baptiste who operated and troubleshot anesthesia equipment. Well-loved and respected, he was known for rushing to the hospital whenever needed, no matter what the day or time.

The DNA test "excluded" Baptiste as the source of one anonymous communication but did not exclude him as the source of another, according to the lab report. Despite this less than conclusive finding, the hospital put Baptiste on paid leave, suggested he not return to Children's, and told him that if he did, his duties would be markedly changed—and it also offered a settlement for legal claims initiated by Baptiste.

Baptiste vigorously denies any involvement in the letter-writing campaign. But feeling bruised by the investigation, he has not returned to Children's and has found another job, much to the chagrin of many of his former coworkers.

"The recent mishandling of Donald Baptiste has clearly demonstrated that ethical management of personnel is less important than protection of the heart center book of business," says an April 14, 2000, letter to the administration signed by 16 members of the anesthesia and critical care department, including its director Jeffrey Morray and a dozen other doctors.

What's more, the letter says that staff members are leaving, "a severe demoralizing effect" has taken hold of several hospital departments, and nurses have filed a grievance with Children's, all because of "heart center issues." It cites "interpersonal conflicts" and, more disturbingly, "concerns over quality of care."

That letter, a range of other hospital-related documents obtained by Seattle Weekly through a public records request, and interviews with present and former medical staff and administrators at Children's make clear that a number of people have problems with the heart center. The controversy—fueled by struggles over power, money, and medical approach—offers a rare window into a profession that many see as the rational, dispassionate face of science.