Lamin Darboe

With a graying population that’s getting bigger and more and with more of that population requiring medical assistance in some way or another, there’s a huge upturn in the overall demand for medical professionals.

Often, hospitals or other facilities that provide medical care offer huge bonuses to anyone willing to sign on the dotted line and join the ranks of those that – for the most part – care for others.

In the rush to find personnel to take care of those needing assistance, human resource departments might be tempted to take a few…shortcuts when it comes time to check the backgrounds of the people that they’re hiring.

Is that what happened in the case of Lamin Darboe?

40-year-old Lamin Darboe, an immigrant from the West African nation of Gambia, crossed over the Atlantic in the early 1990’s. A bodyguard in his home country, Lamin Darboe switched professions when he arrived on United States soil, completing 100 hours of training and becoming a certified nursing assistant.

After working at a series of rehabilitation centers, he was hired by Swedish Medical Center in 1999 and started work as a nursing assistant.

While at the Swedish Medical Center, Lamin Darboe had a few behavior problems, making a habit of sexual harassment.

In 2002, while working there, Lamin made sexual comments to a woman and slightly penetrated her with a finger while he was giving her a bath. He also insisted on giving his e-mail address and cell number to another female patient after she told him that she wasn’t interested in him.

After both of these incidents came to hospital administrator’s attention, someone decided that Lamin Darboe wasn’t a good fit for the facility.

Lamin, of course, wasn’t disclosing that he’d had some run-ins with the law while he had worked there, being questioned by police for one incident when he had been accused of punching his girlfriend and another incident when a woman told the police that Lamin had threatened her when she told him that she wasn’t interested. He was actually arrested in 2001 while being investigated for third-degree rape, but the prosecutors declined to charge him when he explained how the sex was consensual.

Swedish Medical Center, who had no idea that their employee had other legal issues, fired Lamin Darboe for sexual harassment on the 8th of July, 2002.

Lamin immediately began looking for another job in the medical profession, turning in an application at Cascade Valley Hospital, along with a glowing reference from Wally Njie, who was listed as a former supervisor of his back at Swedish Medical Center. According to the reference sheet, Larmin Darboe had been an exemplary employee who could do no wrong. According to the real Wally Njie, he had never supervised Lamin Darboe and had never filled out a reference sheet for Lamin.

Although an employee background check could have uncovered some of the issues that might have kept Lamin from working in the medical profession, not much was done in that regard, and Lamin Darboe was hired by Cascade in September of 2002.

Four months later, in January of 2003, Lamin Darboe was arrested when a woman called police and told them that Lamin had beaten and raped her. While in jail, Lamin called into work and told them that he wanted to take some time off to care for a sick relative.

Slick, but it didn’t work.

Cascade Valley Hospital authorities learned of his legal troubles and fired him.

Stevens Hospital was Lamin Darboe’s next employer, hiring him in 2004 after a cursory check with Swedish Medical Center only turned up dates of employment. The note from Swedish Medical Center to Stevens Hospital read:

Please note we have answered all the questions our current policy allows. The omission of requested information is in no way a reflection of this individual.

Kindred Hospital, a long-term care center, also hired Lamin Darboe at around this time.

Lamin lasted at Stevens Hospital for eight months, being fired after Stevens Hospital officials learned that he’d been charged with rape and kidnapping.

Kindred Hospital, however, did not learn about the charges. Officials followed normal hiring procedures, according to Cheryl Payseno, the hospital’s chief executive officer. Too bad “normal hiring procedures” didn’t reveal his criminal history, his work record or thoroughly check his references.

As a result, Lamin Darboe, after taking a little time off to beat his rape and kidnapping charges (which were cleared in February of 2006), remained employed at Kindred.

So.

Despite a domestic-violence conviction, two rape investigations and three sexual-misconduct claims by patients, Lamin Darboe remained employed in the medical profession, caring for people like a 33-year-old mother of four who had suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed, on a ventilator and unable to speak.

Now, imagine that you’ve suffered a stroke.

You’re conscious, but unable to move much, if at all. You’re on a ventilator. You can’t talk, scream or cry.

You’re helpless – even while a guy like Lamin Darboe is climbing into your hospital bed, pulling your sheets down, lifting your hospital attire and raping you, like he did to that woman during the early months of 2006.

Yes, she would have been the perfect victim for a rapist, except for the fact that she was doing her damnedest to get better, and by July had regained enough control to use an alphabet board and spell out exactly to the police what it was that Lamin had been doing to her.

Interestingly, while the investigation was going on, Lamin Darboe high-tailed it back to Gambia, explaining that he was needed there to care for his dying grandfather. Charged with second-degree rape and indecent liberties while he was gone, Lamin was arrested as he stepped off the plane at the Philadelphia airport when he returned to the United States in September of 2006.

After the first trial ended in a mistrial, Lamin entered a modified guilty plea during his second trial, admitting no guilt, only that a jury would probably convict him. He pled guilty to one rape charge when prosecutors agreed to drop the other three.

In a letter this woman had written, which was read to Lamin Darboe after his sentencing, she mentioned how Darboe’s savage actions had made her feel:

Even though it was a sick act of pleasure for Darboe, it hurt me very badly. Only I would know the great pain of biting my tongue while being raped, still unable to open my mouth after the stroke.

Lamin Darboe had no response, even when this woman managed to flip him off as he was led from the courtroom to serve at least 8 1/2 years in prison. After that time, depending on how the parole board feels about him, he could serve up to a life sentence.

Stories like this are likely to make us wonder just who exactly is taking care of our loved ones.

I am sure that if my parents, or wife, or another relative was in a hospital receiving care, I’d want to know who exactly was taking care of them. You know a hospital isn’t going to be forthcoming, especially if they’ve made a mistake and hired someone without doing a full background check – a mistake that could open them up to a possible lawsuit.

 Loading ...