Social Hospital Under Fire for Forcing Staff Support in Abortion

[cincymma79]

Was she not aware which hospital she worked at? Probably should be drug tested if not

OK I’m just gonna write this one up as you have no idea what you’re talking about and let you argue with yourself for a while

 

[Canned Tuna]

If her refusal was known when she was hired, the hospital fucked up. If she kept it to herself and knowingly got hired in a place where that is part of the job, it's on her.

If it's an opinion she developed after being hired, she should have disclosed it in writing to have a record. Maybe she did for all I know. In that case, it's on the hospital for keeping her around knowing her refusal.

 

[Richie Madano]

OK I’m just gonna write this one up as you have no idea what you’re talking about and let you argue with yourself for a while

It’s obvious to anyone who works in healthcare he has no idea what he’s talking about.

Probably a Bernie bro too who says he’s for worker’s rights except in this thread where he’s not.

 

[Richie Madano]

This isn’t the job though. This was something that she was never told she have to do, therefore not the job. Most hospitals don’t perform these electively.

The ones that do schedule them in advance and staff the OR being used for it accordingly.

 

[cincymma79]

The ones that do schedule them in advance and staff the OR being used for it accordingly.

Sure
Now does this person normally do them? Is this their first one? Did this person see the schedule before that day?

 

[Richie Madano]

Sure
Now does this person normally do them? Is this their first one? Did this person see the schedule before that day?

Health care workers have an obligation to inform hospitals in writing if they have objections to participation in abortion procedure, which this nurse did. The hospital is at fault in this situation for not staffing appropriately and then lying to this nurse about the procedure.

 

[Richie Madano]

If her refusal was known when she was hired, the hospital fucked up. If she kept it to herself and knowingly got hired in a place where that is part of the job, it's on her.

If it's an opinion she developed after being hired, she should have disclosed it in writing to have a record. Maybe she did for all I know. In that case, it's on the hospital for keeping her around knowing her refusal.

She did. They lied to her before the procedure, then forced her to complete it. Hence the federal complaint. That hospital done fucked up.

“In our complaint, we alleged that our client, an operating room nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) in Burlington, was coerced into assisting in an abortion in 2017 even though her name was on a list of nurses who, for religious or moral reasons, were conscientiously opposed to such participation and even though other non-objecting nurses were available who could easily have taken her place.”

 

[cincymma79]

Health care workers have an obligation to inform hospitals in writing if they have objections to participation in abortion procedure, which this nurse did. The hospital is at fault in this situation for not staffing appropriately and then lying to this nurse about the procedure.

Bingo bango Dodge Durango

 

[Staph infection]

So when a Muslim gets a job at a pizza place and refuses to handle pork, they should get a new job.

But when these people (let's be honest, high probability Christian) decide to work in the medical field and object to medical procedures...we should coddle them?

<puh-lease75>

If it part of their job description they should perform or find a new job. If the Muslim can’t touch pork don’t be a cashier, this nurse new this could be part of her job and if she did not want to do it she can find a new job. The woman who would not grant gay marriages in Kentucky should have been fired also because that was part of her job. Do your job or suffer the consequences.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

Dont care if it's the majority of their job. It's part of it.

The majority of my time isnt spent running conduit. But if that's what I need to do, i fucking do it. If i dont want to, it is very easy to quit.

Do your job. Religious exemptions should not exist.

Lol @ comparing grunt work to having a moral stance.

 

[Fluffernutter]

I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.

To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the physician’s oath, but to nobody else.

I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.

Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.[6]

 

[Canned Tuna]

She did. They lied to her before the procedure, then forced her to complete it. Hence the federal complaint. That hospital done fucked up.

“In our complaint, we alleged that our client, an operating room nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) in Burlington, was coerced into assisting in an abortion in 2017 even though her name was on a list of nurses who, for religious or moral reasons, were conscientiously opposed to such participation and even though other non-objecting nurses were available who could easily have taken her place.”

Yeah, sounds like they wronged her pretty significantly

 

[Islam Imamate]

Well what say you I think this is very similar to the wedding cake baker arguments. If you are the only doctor in business should you be forced to perform a abortion? I don't think so what say you?



https://www.courthousenews.com/hospital-under-fire-for-forcing-staff-support-in-abortion/



WASHINGTON (CN) — Federal officials served a violation notice Wednesday to a Vermont hospital that it says forced a nurse to participate in an elective abortion despite her moral objections.

“Please don’t hate me,” a doctor at the University of Vermont Medical Center allegedly said to the nurse as she entered the operating room to assist in what she had been told was a procedure relating to a miscarriage.

Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights for the Department of Health and Human Services, related the details of the case this morning in a press call.

Despite what she had been deliberately misled into thinking by the hospital, according to the notice of violation, the procedure involved an abortion.

“This put the nurse in a tremendous moral quandary,” Severino said, noting that the nurse asked for relief.

“She had already made her objections known,” he continued, “but she even asked at the moment if something could be done to replace her. … But she was told no.”

A representatives for the University of Vermont Medical Center, which received $1.6 million in federal funding this year, denied that it discriminates. It also said the record does not support today’s violation notice — which it learned about through the press.

“Because this issue involves patient care and personnel matters, we cannot go into as much detail as OCR did today, however, we have engaged with representatives from OCR about the complaint over the past nine months,” the hospital said in a statement. “From the outset and as recently as this month, we have offered to discuss our policies and practices, and to receive OCR’s advice on how those policies and practices may be improved consistent with our obligations to our patients. Unfortunately, OCR instead chose to proceed with the announcement it issued today. We nonetheless remain willing to work cooperatively with OCR to identify any ways in which we can further support our employees’ conscience and religious rights, in a manner that is consistent with high-quality patient care, and the other legal and ethical obligations we have to our patients.”

Severino told reporters meanwhile that the hospital provides some accommodations for the religious and moral convictions of staffers who cannot perform abortions, but that it also allows for organizational discretion when related to staffing assistance.

HHS will give Vermont Medical Center 30 days to decide if it will work cooperatively to change that policy under a set of 1973 laws called the Church Amendments, named for then-Senator Frank Church of Idaho. If the center refuses to comply, Severino said the complaint will be forwarded to the Health Resources and Services Administration, a move that could lead to the revocation of federal funds.

“They can provide fully compliant accommodation procedures and staffing policies, which is what we had required in previous enforcement actions at OCR, or they can decline federal funds,” Severino said. “What they cannot do is receive the federal funds and create conditions where they will be scheduling people who object to abortions and schedule them to assist and perform abortions.”

Responding to the notice Wednesday, Michelle Truong, program associate at the International Women’s Health Coalition, emphasized that it’s not so easy to pass off patients to other, more willing providers.

“The reality is when patients are denied care they face increased—and sometimes life-threatening—health risks, mental anguish, and economic stress,” Truong said in a statement.

“By expanding protections for providers that refuse to provide abortion or other reproductive health services, the Trump administration has weaponized religious freedom as a tool of discrimination against women and LGBTQI people.”

Severino said today’s violation notice is not tied to new anti-discrimination protections being rolled out by the Trump administration for individuals and entities exercising conscience-based objections in health care.

The conscience rule had initially been set to take effect last month but HHS pushed the effective date to November in light of ongoing litigation.

“In a country with many contentious issues, we do not want a society where, on the issue of life and death, people are forced to violate their deepest held beliefs about it, especially on the issue of abortion and medical professionals, who enter the medical profession to help save lives, not take lives,” Severino said.

Katherine Ragsdale, interim president and CEO of National Abortion Federation, said in a statement Wednesday that individuals who are uncomfortable with performing their work compassionately should find alternative employment.

“We respect, within reasonable limits, individuals’ rights to act in accordance with their consciences,” Ragsdale said in a statement. “Those health care workers whose consciences do not allow them to provide compassionate care or to perform the duties their patients require and their employers assign should feel free, and encouraged, to find other work.”

Truong echoed this sentiment.

“Providers have an obligation to provide legal health services when requested,” she said.

“So-called ‘conscientious objection’ has no place in health care and is a violation of patients’ rights,” Truong added. “When medical providers refuse to provide health care services, patients and health systems face severe consequences.

If the nurse's account is true that is indeed wrong, the hospital was either being incompetent or willfully malicious.

 

[44nutman]

Could you imagine if you got hired for a job that might require you to dig a ditch and then one day your employer came to you and said, sorry but here is a shovel and you need to go dig a ditch. Then the employee said not today, MFer I aint digging no ditch. IF that person got fired every one would be like good they deserved it.
If there is a part of your job you don't want to do, then get another fucking job.

 

[Ayin]

Do your job or you are fired. If your religion makes you unable to do your job, quit.

As long as you are agreeing to doing the work when hired, I agree. If you object on religious grounds to killing after already joining the army, it’s far too late.

However, if they hired you knowing and accepting your specific requirements and then later asked you to perform the task against the previous agreement, then they are at fault, which sounds like exactly what occurred here.

Handling pork is the same as ending a human life they said...

To many in this instance it is somehow much worse. To many in many instances it is much worse.

The world’s a crazy place.

 

[Canned Tuna]

Could you imagine if you got hired for a job that might require you to dig a ditch and then one day your employer came to you and said, sorry but here is a shovel and you need to go dig a ditch. Then the employee said not today, MFer I aint digging no ditch. IF that person got fired every one would be like good they deserved it.
If there is a part of your job you don't want to do, then get another fucking job.

If you made it clear all along that you were morally opposed to stuffing ditches and your employer agreed accommodate that, then you are well within your right to say fuck no. It really all comes down to what kind of understanding there was beforehand.

The fact that the person was tricked into it rather than "oh shit we really need you to come save this person's life because we started a procedure and need another nurse" indicates to me that the circumstances favor the nurse in this one

 

[SeefourDC]

I work in healthcare at a pretty high level and this is pretty abhorrent to me from a lot of perspectives. It seems like there is a ton of effort to turn this into a religious argument by a lot of people posting but it does not even need to be a religious argument. I've spent 10 years of my life doing everything I can to learn to save lives and gone through the ups and downs of saving people and losing people myself and my coworkers did everything we could to save. Everything I learned was to do everything I can to preserve life and help people get better. To then turn around and be forced to end a human life would be morally horrifying on a level I cannot even begin to express. I've been a part of allowing patients to pass compassionately after modern medicine's ability to heal has been exhausted and the options are abject suffering or compassionate end of life care but there is literally no comparison between that and being a part of ending a human life. The stage of life literally doesn't matter.

It's morally horrifying to be forced to take part in killing and there isn't really a scenario where this should just be okay. If people want to provide this type of service that's on them but I don't and I won't because my life is devoted to preserving life.

The second horrible thing in this situation is that -they intentionally deceived her.- For those of you outside of healthcare let me put some light on why this is absolutely horrifying. The entire idea behind healthcare is based in an ability to trust. I have to trust the people next to me in terrible situations to get the job done or we will kill people. You all have to trust that we as healthcare workers are acting in your best interest or the whole system breaks down. I cannot possibly act in your best interest if my mind is consumed with the -verifiable fact- that I am working with people I know set out to intentionally deceive me and in essence set out to harm me when I have already informed them that something is not okay for me to be involved in. There are a ton of ways this plays out every day in healthcare but this situation is absolutely one of the most horrifying to me. I am responsible for who has what assignments at my job oftentimes and this is just absolutely horrifying to me. I cannot imagine assigning someone to a situation after they have informed me they are not okay in it either for a time or permanently. Undoubtedly there was a way to work this situation out in the best interest of the staff as a whole and someone just flat out chose not to. Whatever their reasoning is they are a horrible human being and don't deserve to be responsible for a team at mcdonalds let alone a healthcare team.

 

[SammyPops]

A nation of laws can be a fuck of a ting, eh?

 

[Islam Imamate]

Could you imagine if you got hired for a job that might require you to dig a ditch and then one day your employer came to you and said, sorry but here is a shovel and you need to go dig a ditch. Then the employee said not today, MFer I aint digging no ditch. IF that person got fired every one would be like good they deserved it.
If there is a part of your job you don't want to do, then get another fucking job.

Digging a ditch is not the kind of morally ambiguous act that abortion is. According to this nurse's account she had made her objections clear at the start of her employment and she was employed despite that. She then claims that on the day in question she was misled as to the nature of the operation when called for it and this despite the fact that there were other nurses available who did not harbor her objections.

If her account is true, at this point still an if, don't you see how the hospital was less than ideal in dealing with her? Imagine someone agrees to work for an animal shelter but explicitly makes their objection to euthanizing animals clear and the employer agrees to accommodate that, only to later trick said employee by telling them to clean the dog kennel to try and force them to euthanize a dog when they gets there. Isn't that kind of wrong?

 

[Islam Imamate]

Probably a Bernie bro too who says he’s for worker’s rights except in this thread where he’s not.

Maybe so. Personally I consider myself a Bernie bro and I am sympathetic to this nurse if her account is true.