Hospital Won't Hire Obese Workers

Published

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-health-resources/health-reform-and-texas/victoria-hospital-wont-hire-very-obese-workers/

I'm not sure this link will take you to the article, but I read it this morning and couldn't believe my eyes! Seems a few lawsuits will be coming their way along with the race discrimination one in place already. What do you all think about it?

I wish allnurses could put an ignore feature so I can skip right over it.

Click on the user name of the person you want to ignore, and up towards the top of the screen will be a blue button to click "Ignore." :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, PACU, Med-Surg.
@ notjustanurse

I am sorry if I am insulting you but the patients you are trying to educate on good health and nutrition, and other topics that closely relate to weight and good health just look at you and think, if she can't do it why should I even try.

Your a role model for health and wellness, its no wonder our country is obese.

And I'm sure you're perfect.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

8mpg- I am truely dumbfounded that your callousness and lack of empathy was allowed to continue in any nursing program. Please, do patient's a favor and get out of nursing before your prejudice and cruelty causes any more patients permanant emotional harm, especially the obese patient's that are subjected to your personal disgust for them they see in your expression and actions toward them when they ring that call bell needing assistance from a nurse. Do No Harm.

I can't imagine discriminating against any group of people is considered"advancing the profession" or any profession for that matter.

I, too, am glad I do not work with you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

This very argument was given to a very well qualified and loved nurse who applied for nurse manager. This was 30 years ago. They told her that "she didn't project the image that the hospital wanted to show" and she was not given the position. I can work circles around some of the skinny, pretty and lazy co-workers on my unit. I guess I'm in trouble at some point. I'm considered obese as of this point in time and never was really "pretty" even when I was thin. I guess the next thing will be that we all need to look "pretty". Too late for this old geezer.

What about the nurse who is on medication that causes weight gain? The first time I was on prednisone for sarcoidosis, I gained 20 pounds in one month. I've been off and on steroids of one type or another for the last 25 years.

As for spectrabrite, " the patients will see the person and a lot of the time ignore the message, the nurse is teaching them about there (their) nutrition, or blood pressure or cholesterol"

This is not a valid argument. When I used to be 5'3" and 110 pounds, patients didn't always listen any better to me then than they do now. Many patients will go their merry way regardless of who, what or how they are instructed. Compliance has been and always will be an issue with patients no matter who does the teaching.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

If anybody wants to "look" at me or anyone else and use looks alone as a basis for making them their role model, they are an idiot. You should role model who people ARE, not what they look like. Helen Keller wasn't beautiful, but she turned darkness and silence into light and language. Eleanor Roosevelt was ugly as sin, but did more to advance the rights of minorities and women than any First Lady before or since. Mother Teresa was small, scrawny and wrinkled, but did more good in one day than I could hope to do in my whole life. If I'd had a daughter, I'd rather she came out like one of them, than a shallow idiot who bases their life on their looks.

I have no desire to stand before God at the end of my life and when he says, "what good did you do with the life I gave you?" all I can say is, "I was thin and a snappy dresser."

Up Vote Up Vote ×
.If I'd had a daughter, I'd rather she came out like one of them, than a shallow idiot who bases their life on their looks. I have no desire to stand before God at the end of my life and when he says, "what good did you do with the life I gave you?" all I can say is, "I was thin and a snappy dresser."
Why does it have to be one or the other?
Up Vote Up Vote ×

[quote=nerdtonurse?;6410072

I have no desire to stand before God at the end of my life and when he says, "what good did you do with the life I gave you?" all I can say is, "I was thin and a snappy dresser."

Amen!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

BTW, this hospital also has a discrimination suit ongoing, brought by some Indian physicians who were not allowed to advance in their positions. Seems they don't project the right 'image' for the hospital either!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Progressive, Intermediate Care, and Stepdown.

If it's the insurance thing, pretty soon it'll be, "Oh you have diabetes" Resume tossed! "Oh, you have asthma." Resume tossed! "Oh, you have a family history of this, this, and this." Never interviewed! I get that smoking and obesity is modifiable and one with these problems may not be as efficient as one who doesn't have these problems. And, more sick days and higher insurance premiums. However, where does this lead? When will it end?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

I read about a proposal (by physician groups) to add a 40% increase for all salty foods to reduce hypertension world wide.

Seriously? I eat super healthy 90% of the time and exercise over 5 hours a week and now the 2 times A year I buy chips I am going to pay 40% more?

Inch by inch, step by step, all of this is getting so carried away. I believe I have the right to make my own good or bad decisions. No, it is not ok to drive drunk and harm others of course, but just because I might some day cost someone somewhere money because I have hypertension that may or may be sodium moderated?

All these previous intrusions that have been allowed into what we do in our own non-working time have laid down the foundation for more and more of this.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

The discrimination suite will get the hospital's attention because it's the "Physicians" that are pressing the charges and the point. They have the money to do so and with 'physician title' comes prestige. Hospitals stand up and listen. They also have tradionally been "male dominated". Say physician to some one- the first image is a Male.

Say "nurse" to anyone and it is pooh pooh'd. 'Nurse' is not equated with "money". And it has been and continues to be very carefully kept/manipulated that way!! The economy has been used as an excuse. It was a very palliatable excuse that people in general, including us nurse, were accepting of with out question or fight. A bit of Nursing history: Nursing salaries were on the rise through the 1990's and especially in the early 2000's. For all you older experienced nurse out their in cyber space- think about you salary back in the 1980's, 1990's then think about the salary in the early 2000's. We were given cost of living raises, nice shift differentials, bonuses for working extra shifts, extra money for doing charge, and weekends, in addition to sign on bonuses( to the tune of $3,000-$15,000). Now they want every experience gone from the planet- we are harrassed out of jobs, tuned down for jobs even when the job posting say other wise( where is Ralph Nadar and his group against false advertising!!)-believe me- I KNOW from personal experience. The big, big PTB(CEO's, CNO's Nursing directors) do not want nurses to gain any kind of power or omentum. There are far to many of us. And it is for this reason they want the experience nurse -OUT- we have been there, seen that and know the crock of crap they are slinging isn't right or safe and voilated state and federal regulation and labor and civil laws and we have the big mouths to expose it. Say nurse to some one and the first image that comes to mind is "female" Say "nurse" to someone and it does not denote prestige, it MAY( although I don't even think this is true anymore, through this carefully engineered manipulation) carry a certain degree of respect but not prestige. Nurses are second class citizens in the healthcare infastructure.

How far would these hospitals get with the age descrimination and all this other illegal discrimination shown to nurses if they did this to physicians? chronic conditions/do not hire; obesity/do not hire; smoking- yes, there are doctors that smoke/do not hire.

See any doctors being shown the door for being obese, past 50yr old or smokers? I don't!

The fact that admissions/census is down compared to 1980's and 1990's and 2000 don't count, more manipulation and lies and propraganda because the cost of healthcare for the same services has dramatically risen and these patients are more complex and acutely ill then they ever were. example: compare the cost of a colonoscopy from 1980's=#1500 to yr. 2000 = $3000, aren't they now= $5,000. Colonoscopy's were done in 1980's with an RN doing"conscious sedation- valium, demerol. Now they are done with propofol and an "anesthesia provider," CRNA or Physician. A seperate specialist cost tacted on to the bill. If the patient is high risk, it is done in a hospital setting( an OR) as opposed to a Ambulatory care facility. A whooping big difference in cost for the facility used- coding and billing. The doc is not going to scope the patient with a hx of diabetes and 3 bare metal or DES stents in his corornary arteries in an ambulatory care Center.!! Common proceedure, common very low acuity patient complexity compared to what other patients are out there. And the CEO wants us to believe - the hospital is losing money due to low census??? I'm not buying it and neither should the entire nursing profession community. Some one or alot of some ones- need to start going after these CEO's for Fraud, Waste and Abuse.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU.

Great question! I imagine no different than she did trying to make it across the hospital parking lot!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion