Kaiser hit with sexual harassment suit

Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, along with employee Emmanuel Iheke, have been hit with a superior-court sexual harassment and battery lawsuit by another employee, Adriana Arias.

The suit claims that Iheke, who sometimes supervised Arias, grabbed her breasts and buttocks, rubbed and grabbed her vagina, and asked her to have sex with him. She charges that she complained three times over five years to Kaiser management and nothing happened.

Last August, she complained again and there was an investigation, but Iheke was never disciplined, she says. Iheke remains at the Zion Avenue facility while Arias was sent to another, but now she says she will have to go back to work at the Zion facility and work on a team that he is on.

Kaiser refuses to discuss a matter that is in litigation but says "the safety of our patients and our employees is Kaiser Permanente's number one priority," and Kaiser does not tolerate sexual harassment.