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ER, critical-care, neo-natal and other nurses sue Beth Israel hospitals for firing them after they refused to get Covid-19 shots
By adamg on Thu, 11/17/2022 - 11:43am
A group of 20 employees at Beth Israel Deaconess and affiliated hospitals and health-care facilities say they were deprived of their religious, due-process and equal-protection rights when they were fired between November, 2021 and January, 2022 for their refusal to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
The nurses include two who worked in an emergency room, another who worked in a critical-care unit, one who worked in a neo-natal intensive care unit and two who worked taking care of patients with wounds. Other nurses and employees, including technicians, a medical assistant, a physical therapist and supervisors also joined the suit, against Beth Israel Deaconess, Mount Auburn, Beverly, Plymouth and Winchester hospitals and a Lahey Health clinic.
In the suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, they allege they all had valid religious reasons to request exemptions from the shots, but that the hospitals simply fired them without "any meaningful process" to consider those reasons, after first putting the workers on a two-week unpaid leave. Unlike the suits by several Boston Medical Center nurses, the complaint does not include the specifics of the employees' religious claims.
The hospitals also violated their 14th-Amendment to equal protection by refusing to treat them the same as workers who did get the shots, and were governed solely by "retaliatory animus," which is illegal under Massachusetts law, the suit charges.
The suit says the hospitals had some nerve firing workers who had faithfully continued to work at the height of the pandemic, with only masks to protect them, and that masks and periodic testing continue to be a good alternative since the vaccines aren't really all that good, anyway, as evidenced by all the public figures who contracted Covid-19 after getting shots, including Anthony Fauci. Fauci, however, continues to advocate that people get vaccinated, in part to protect other people.
Last December, the Supreme Court upheld a New York State law that required health-care workers to get shots and to reject religious exemptions.
The workers are represented by Richard Chambers, a Lynnfield attorney who also represents a group of people suing Boston for $6 million apiece over the city's since suspended requirements to show proof of vaccination at places where the public might gather.
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Comments
At what point in the
At what point in the reporting of these suits can we start asking ourselves if medical professionals might have a reason for having declined experimental prophylaxis at the expense of their jobs?
I should probably start figuring out ...
Just what percentage of the workforces these nurses represent. I seem to recall in the Mass General Brigham case, we were talking 200 employees out of a workforce of 60,000 or so.
So the question becomes kind of irrelevant if you assume the percentage is really, seriously, wicked small, even if you assume, incorrectly, that the vaccines are "experimental," as opposed to being approved by the federal government.
Definition of experimental.....
"(of a new invention or product) based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized."
Seems on the money, particularly when the vaccine still has not received FULL approval. All vaccines received "emergency use authorization". And this is the FIRST mRNA vaccine widely used.
60,000 employees including janitors and hall monitors. Losing HIGHLY skilled neo-natal and critical care RNs and comparing that loss against ALL employess, including food servers and ect. is disingenuous.
If you going to try and correct someone, at least be correct.
If you going to try and correct someone, at least be correct
Words to live by, I suggest you try them.
MRNA is not some new thing, it's been under a long time (here's a 2012 article; here's a broader overview). The specific Covid-19 vaccines approved in the US went through all three stages of testing required for vaccines.
"Losing HIGHLY skilled neo-natal and critical care RNs and comparing that loss against ALL employess, including food servers and ect. is disingenuous. "
Please. First, re-read the story. Not all the plaintiffs are nurses. That's the same as with the Mass General Brigham suit. But even if they were (or in the Mass General case, you threw in a couple doctors), that would still be a small number compared to the total number of nurses employed across the Mass Brigham or Beth Israel systems.
If you're gonna come on here and post
Please sign up for an account, it makes it easier to know when the same person is regurgitating the same points over and over again.
As a BIDMC patient who uses
As a BIDMC patient who uses some of these services I fully support the hospital. I am very vulnerable when I go into that space and the last thing I need is medical professionals hovering over me who have not been vaccinated. Luckily I do not have any lung issues but many at those hospitals do.
What?
" last thing I need is medical professionals hovering over me who have not been vaccinated"
It common knowledge, vaccinated people can still spread COVID. You're stuck in late 2020!
I have 3 small children, and the shortage of staff, beds and even some medications at this point far outweighs someone's vaccine status.
Id rather my children receive care than not because someone made a personal choice.
Can you let us know if you're the same person posting above?
Again, consider signing up for an account.
I'm amused by the thought of
I'm amused at the thought of someone arguing with themselves on a forum like this lol
It is common knowledge that
It is common knowledge that vaccinated people are less likely to spread covid, and that difference is enough to save lives..
It is common sense that someone who thinks that "periodic testing" is an adequate replacement for vaccination may have been infected since the most recent test. Are they going to test twenty minutes before arriving for each shift, and then again before going home?
The average person who doesn't work in medicine can reduce the risk of transmitting disease -- including but not limited to covid -- by not coming close to other people. A nurse, and especially one working in a neo-natal unit or emergency room, can't do that while taking care of patients.
Beth Israel Deaconess isn't trying to ban the plaintiffs from working as nurses. There are anti-vaccine doctors who might hire them, or they can staff a nurse hotline, with no direct contact with patients.
Please learn the science and epidemiology
Or just be quiet while the grownups are talking.
You think you know things and use sciencey words, but you are a total fool with math, with biology, and with basic understanding of evidence.
You know what?
A friends grandson has been in ICU on oxygen for two weeks now. He had to be flown 350 miles via life flight to a hospital that could handle his condition. He's a newborn with a cardiac and airway malformation.
He caught COVID from an unvaccinated nurse in one of those goddamn red states that thinks the right to nearly kill a newborn is freedom.
Fuck Kristi Noem, and fuck you.
Religion vs. science
I know what I want the people giving me health care to rely on.
Every one of these lawsuits should be tossed with prejudice
preferably with great force from a tall building. The only one of these that has any merit is from the nurse who says she is allergic to one of the vaccine adjuvents.
And if...
And if this is indeed true, and there's no way to safely receive the vaccine, the appropriate thing is to reassign her with no loss of pay or benefits. It's unfortunate, but medical conditions or disability doesn't mean that you get to have any job you want, not if you are thereby unable to do the job safely. A person who transports patients and needs to perform lifts, and who injures their back so they can no longer safely lift more than fifteen pounds, does not get to keep that job. You do the right thing by them, but you don't compromise the safety of others for a symbolic gesture.
Screw 'em
Health care workers who won't get vaccinated against a potentially deadly disease clearly don't care if they spread the virus to everyone they contact. They have no business working in health care.
A new cast of Pythons
These claims of "Religious Exemption" tell me that a new cast of Pythons are growing. Monty Python, 21st Century, Medical. Nursery Silly Talk.
And now for something serious. These are just pride and greed suits. They have no basis in legitimate concerns about patients and ethics. Just folks hoping for easy money via settlements. Meanwhile they ram the cost down the throats of patients.
These are not just frivolous suits. These are disgusting abuses of the legal system.