Prospective employee's psych hx

[ashleed]

It was revealed to me by my assistant nurse manager that she and our nurse manager had looked up to see if a prospective employee had a mental health history with us. We are an inpatient mental health unit connected to a community mental health center. Despite a good interview, they chose to look because the interviewee had mentioned a few things that had led them to believe that she had been there before. They were unsure if she had been there to visit someone or had been a patient herself. It turns out she had been a patient and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stigma associated with the disorder and this prevented her from being hired. I can't help but feel that this was wrong even though it may have caused us problems should she had been hired. I'm curious as to how other people would handle this information. Thank you for your time.

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

I am wondering how they can justly say they cannot hire anyone who was ever a patient? That is crazy. So if someone has a simple surgery or perhaps they delivered their child there, they cannot be hired? You were retaliated against and I would not take that. What they did was wrong and this manager is trying to cover her tracks by writing you up. If you have a HR dept. I would most certainly go there.