City fights self in 7-year spat

Lawsuit pits agency vs. agency

Two city agencies have been battling over a former stressed-out worker’s discrimination suit for nearly seven years — and there’s no end in sight.

Rose Vincent, who worked as a patient aide for NYC Health + Hospitals from 2000 to 2011, said that in January 2010, she began to submit requests to be moved from her job at Woodhull Hospital after she had suffered a stroke.

She said the hospital’s failure to transfer her from a stressful emergency-room job to a less pressure-filled post led to her suffering another stroke in December 2010 that eventually forced her into retirement.

Vincent filed a com- plaint with the city’s Human Rights Commission in January 2011 against Woodhull and her boss, Maria Scaramuzzino.

It’s been winding its way through the system ever since.

Typically, cases brought by the commission aren’t against other city agencies and take about a year to resolve.

But the commission, which has taken her side, and the hospital system are engaged in an epic battle over her medical records.

Health + Hospitals has requested all of Vincent’s records since 2008 — a demand the commission argued would cause her an “irreparable” violation of privacy, according to administrative trial records.

The city’s Office of Ad- ministrative Trials and Hearings was tasked with reviewing whether all the records should be turned over on Dec. 12.

Another city agency, the Corporation Counsel, which is representing the hospital system against the commission, did not respond to messages.

“The speed of case resolution . . . depends on a variety of factors,” said commission spokeswoman Morgan Rubin. “In order to protect the integrity of our investigation process, the commission does not comment on open and ongoing cases like this one.”

Vincent, who made $52,000 in 2010 and is seeking unspecified damages, could not be reached for comment Sunday.