About 170 people filed into the Van Deusen Room on the third floor of the Kalamazoo Public Library Saturday. They had come to support Dr. Justine Bunka's efforts to be reinstated at Bronson Rambling Road Pediatrics.
Bunka was fired, along with her colleague Dr. Randall Dyk, at the end of January.
Bronson Healthcare will not say why the doctors were terminated, but Bunka told the crowd the firing “happened abruptly and unexpectedly," and that she was told she “no longer fit the culture.”
“I'm only left to assume that it was because I was reprimanded for speaking out about changes to procedures that impact patient care," Bunka said.
Bunka said the practice was informed last summer that they would need to see more patients. Doctors could do that by reducing time with each patient and working through part of their lunch break. In September, she said doctors were told they could no longer do rounds in the hospital nursery, which would save drive time and allow them to see more patients in the office.
Bunka estimated that between the two doctors, they saw between 150 to 200 patients a week.
“I organized with my co-workers at Rambling Road to speak out against these changes. But when I did, I was called unprofessional,” Bunka said.
Frustrated and angry parents of former patients of both doctors were there, but Dyk was not. That’s because he signed a separation agreement with Bronson Healthcare, that limits what he can say.
Bunka did not sign a similar agreement that Bronson offered her. Instead, she filed an an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
More than 3,900 people have now signed an online petition asking for Bronson Healthcare to reinstate both doctors.
“This has been probably the best day I've had since I've gotten fired,” Bunka said during the rally.
Along with Bunka, speakers included a retired colleague from the Rambling Road clinic and three parents of patients. Alexis Hawkins was one of them.
“When I heard about this rally for her, I was like absolutely, absolutely because supporting her, it's the least I could do for as much as she's done for our family over the last three, three and a half years,” Hawkins said.
Shortly after birth, now three-year-old Valerie Hawkins was diagnosed with Hirschprung’s disease, which affects the large intestine. In Valerie’s case, surgeons had to remove her entire large intestine when she was two weeks old.
In her rally speech, Hawkins called Bunka her “guiding light.”
“From the moment my child was diagnosed, Dr. Bunka was more than just a doctor. She became a partner in my child's care, an advocate in the moments where we felt unheard, and a source of unwavering support through surgeries, hospital stays, and the everyday complexities of managing the condition," she said.
Teri McCrumb was a diabetes nurse practitioner at a Bronson office in Battle Creek. She said she quit at the end of January, in part because she said providers don’t have much say in how many patients they see and how much time they spend with them.
“When I saw the story about Dr. Bunka and the courage that she had to come forward and, and put herself out there, it just made me sad that I didn't do that and I felt like I had to come today.”
McCrumb added that “patients aren't money, patients are people.”
WMUK has asked Bronson Healthcare for comment.
