Whidbey General Hospital paid lawyers a quarter-of-a-million dollars to deal with a doctor who publicly criticized the hospital and a citizen journalist who created a critical blog.

In 2012, the hospital paid $554,393 in legal bills, according to a public records request by the Whidbey News Group. About half that amount stems from “issues surrounding Dr. (Mark) Borden and Rob Born,” said hospital spokeswoman Trish Rose.

That’s more than the hospital normally pays in legal fees, she said. In 2013, the hospital spent $219,339 and in 2014 it spent $144,606. So far this year, the hospital racked up $525,490 in fees — about half of it to defend its chief nursing officer, Linda Gipson, against a gross-misdemeanor charge.

“The most significant costs for 2015 were attributable to the county’s questionable decision to prosecute our (chief nursing officer),” Rose said.

Gipson was found not guilty. The hospital will likely be repaid under a state fund that reimburses attorney’s fees for people charged with assault who are found to have acted in self defense.

In total, the hospital paid 19 different law firms and attorneys nearly $1.5 million since 2012.

“We use multiple firms to help us with a variety of legal issues,” Rose said. “The district uses local counsel when appropriate.”

Many of the complex issues the hospital encounters require lawyers who specialize in areas such as healthcare finance, medical malpractice, land acquisition, labor negotiations and government rules, she said.

The hospital also paid attorneys to review documents requested by the doctor and Born, who criticizes the hospital at his blog, Whidbey General Reformers. Born is running for a seat on the hospital board this November.

He started the blog after reading about Borden, the former emergency services director, who spoke up at hospital board meetings about problems he saw in the emergency room. Borden claimed he was forced out of his job.

The hospital won’t elaborate on why Borden was fired but Rose said that “Dr. Borden’s behaviors led his employer (Team Health) to remove him from the hospital’s emergency room.”

The hospital also terminated his membership and clinical privileges after a hearing before a panel of medical staff and an appeal to the board.

“These hearings are similar to a trial and very time consuming and costly,” Rose said.

So, too, were Born’s records requests, she said, although she could not say exactly how much of the quarter million dollars was spent on reviewing records.

“There was also a large amount of intertwined activities surrounding Dr. Borden, including multiple public records requests by Mr. Born,” she said. “These requests were very broad and while we attempted to work with Mr. Born to narrow his requests, we were rarely successful. The search, gathering and identification of responsive and exempt documents and review by legal counsel resulted in increased legal spending.”

Born said he placed about 50 public records requests in 2011 and 2012. He wanted to look at things such as contracts, salary information and former CEO Tom Tomasino’s calendar. He said he worked with the hospital to narrow the scope of his requests or even cancel part of them if they were too difficult to fulfill.

“I said on many occasions, ‘You don’t have to give that to me,’ ” he said.

Since then he’s made no requests until this month when he made six.

Whidbey General Hospital is part of a special district which receives taxpayer money. The district is subject to the state Open Public Records Act, which holds that all local government records are available for review by the public except for a few specific exemptions spelled out by state law.

Born, who is an attorney, said the hospital overuses lawyers and “can’t handle criticism.”

“It’s part of what I call ‘anti-transparency,’ ” he said. “They can’t handle having their scandals exposed.”

He said the hospital uses attorneys to “intimidate, harass and punish people.”

Dr. Borden wasn’t surprised by the hospital’s legal bills. He spent $30,000 of his own money defending himself. Attorneys, he said, are “extremely expensive and exceptionally useless.”