A 12-year-old girl who died by suicide at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in April was one of four suicidal patients the Spokane hospital put at risk this year, the Washington Department of Health found last month.
Department investigators, who reviewed patient records, security footage and interviewed Sacred Heart staff, found that the hospital had repeatedly violated statewide safety standards by failing to follow its own policies around screening and supervision of patients with suicidal ideation. In the case of Sarah Niyimbona, whose suicide spurred the state’s investigation and a malpractice lawsuit by her family, investigators also raised alarms over Sacred Heart’s delayed response to her escape from the pediatrics floor. On April 13, Sarah managed to walk out of the unit where she had been staying as a psychiatric patient, walk to a hospital parking garage and jump from the fourth floor. She died in the emergency room from her injuries two hours later.
The state’s findings, which InvestigateWest obtained through a public records request, expose a broader pattern of missteps where Sacred Heart staff failed to administer required twice-daily suicide screenings and left at-risk patients unmonitored. One patient had one missed screening, another had 18, and Sarah missed 64 out of 92 screenings she should have received. Another patient hospitalized after a suicide attempt wasn’t screened once in 46 days spent at Sacred Heart. Hospital staff ordered one-on-one supervision of that patient and Sarah to prevent them from harming themselves, but later eliminated that supervision with “no documentation explaining why,” health department investigators found…