KANSAS CITY — Donnah Opelac said she quit working as a fill-in hospital nurse for Integral Care Providers Inc. in April 2004 after a Food Stamp case worker had counseled her to find another job.

Opelac sent Integral a thank-you note and $325, the first of many intended payments for Integral’s help in immigrating from the Philippines.

Integral’s reply from lawyers at Bryan Cave LLC demanded $5,578 within two weeks.

“I didn’t expect that they would do that,” Opelac said. “I planned to pay without any notice from them.”

She sent $400 more to Integral, but after Bryan Cave then sought $863 a month, Opelac quit paying, and Integral sued her.

Six other Filipino nurses face similar suits by Integral, alleging that they breached contracts with the company by quitting and finding work elsewhere.

The nurses allege that the Overland Park company and its owners enticed them to this country with the promise of full-time work for one hospital but ended up parceling them out for part-time work at many institutions.

Their counterclaim is filed in Johnson County District Court against Integral and owners Jason and Gigi Mateo — themselves Filipino immigrants.

The Mateos declined to comment on the legal battle, as did Integral’s lawyers at Bryan Cave.

The Mateos came to the United States in the late 1970s and worked for about 15 years as registered nurses.

They founded Integral in 1994 and told The Business Journal in 2001 that the company did more than $5 million in sales annually, offering short-term hospital staff to area facilities.

In a Dec. 1, 2001, letter to the Philippines promising Mavic Cachola-Omolon “permanent full-time employment” for $640 a week, Jason Mateo wrote that the company had 345 employees.

In its suits against the seven nurses, the company claims that it “satisfactorily performed all of its obligations under the recruitment agreement.”

But the recruits said they were not given full-time jobs or adequate transportation as promised.

“There will be a time when I will work from about 7 p.m., and I’ll be sent home at 11 because the hospital no longer needs me,” said Jean Acabal, who expected to work full-time for a hospital, not occasionally for a nursing agency. “And then I don’t have a car, so I have to sleep in the hospital. I have to wait for the other nurses to go home because I rode with them.”

Complaining nurses were told in a meeting that they couldn’t work as nurses for any other employer, Acabal said. They were told in a memo that Integral could send them back to the Philippines “whenever it is necessary,” the counterclaims said.

The company is demanding payments ranging upward of $7,000 for legal fees and airfare and alleges that the nurses had signed contracts to work for Integral for two years as registered nurses.

“In reliance on Acabal’s promise, Integral obtained immigration clearance for Acabal to come to the United States, assisted Acabal in locating and procuring housing, employed Acabal, provided transportation to Acabal and paid for various expenses of Acabal,” Integral’s suit states.

The nurses’ lawyer, Adele McGrath of the McGrath Law Firm in Kansas City, has won the first round of motions, persuading District Judge Janice Russell last April 19 to consolidate the seven lawsuits into one case.

Exploitation is a frequent complaint lodged by Filipino nurses recruited to the United States to remedy chronic nurse shortages.

In 1999, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settled for $2.1 million the complaints of 65 Filipinos about discriminatory pay by a Gladstone nursing home.

In the Johnson County case, the nurses acknowledge that the hourly rates paid by Integral were among the best they’d received but said Integral did not provide full-time work.

Also, Opelac and the other nurses allege that the Mateos took advantage of their ignorance of U.S. laws to keep them from getting better jobs, aware that the nurses needed money for their families in the Philippines.

Harold Gumayagay said he was among the first Filipino nurses recruited to Overland Park by Integral. Although he paid the amounts due the Mateos after they found him steady work at Research Medical Center, they’re suing him for quitting before completing two years as a registered nurse.

“The question of not getting enough hours was not my concern,” he said. “But I told myself I cannot work for a company that cannot provide hours for nurses while I am getting all the hours myself.”

Cachola-Omolon said she left behind six sisters and her parents in the Philippines to work for Integral. Now living in Georgia and working full-time, she sends $500 a month to support her family — something she said she couldn’t do while working for Integral.

“I’m like the main bread winner in my family in the first place,” she said.

Like Opelac and Acabal, she said she’d expected full-time work with just one hospital when she signed her agreement with Integral in the Philippines.

“When they conducted the interview back in the Philippines, they promised me a full-time nursing job in one hospital,” Cachola-Omolon said.

“It came out totally different when I came in here.”