Posted on 05/02/2021 2:11:47 PM PDT by george76
Houston woman let go from her job as a nurse after refusing to get COVID-19 vaccine..
FOX 26 Reporter Maria Salazar spoke with the woman who claimed she was also silenced and harassed.
A Houston-area woman says she was a nurse at Houston Methodist for about 10 years until this week.
"I knew that the date was looming over my head of me to get the vaccine and we were constantly being pressured and pressured," Michelle Fuentes told FOX 26.
On April 1, Houston Methodist announced it would require employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine by June 7. However, the hospital system asked employees who would not get the vaccine to submit documentation for consideration for a medical or religious exemption by May 3.
Fuentes says she made a final effort to voice her concern to save her job at Houston Methodist before turning in her two-weeks notice.
"I just needed a little bit more time and little bit more research to be done," Fuentes stated.
She adds she wants the clinical trials to be completed before she decides to get the vaccine or not. But stresses she is not against vaccines and gets the flu vaccine every year.
A spokesperson for the hospital system says 90% of employees are vaccinated now, and only two in management have resigned so far.
Fuentes says a supervisor encouraged her to file for a religious exemption.
"And I said, 'Well, I don't have a religious exemption. I'm not doing this for religious reasons,' and she said, 'I know, but we'll help you fill it out, and at least this will save your job,'" Fuentes claims. "So, because I don't have a religious reason and it's a personal reason, my beliefs and my feelings aren't as worthy as someone who has a religious reason?"
Fuentes says when she did not agree to stay quiet about the reason for her departure, she was not allowed to complete her final two weeks and escorted out of the hospital.
In response, Houston Methodist stated they do not advise those who decline the vaccine for personal reasons to file for a religious exemption. Adding:
"We have a process in place for the employees who want to request a religious/medical exemption--- like we have had for the flu shot for more than a decade. Not all exemptions are granted."
In the meantime, Fuentes says she was prepared to wear masks at work and show lab results of COVID-19 antibodies since she'd recovered from the disease.
She adds, she regularly worked in a surgical unit, but volunteered to work in the COVID-19 unit.
"I want to be known that I was a safe nurse when I worked at the height of the pandemic and volunteered to work and did work in the COVID unit. So, I was a safe nurse then, not vaccinated, and I was able to turn back around and work in my unit without being tested and without being vaccinated," Fuentes said.
Houston Methodist adds:
"Our employees have the choice to stay or leave—we are not forcing anyone to get a vaccine. But over everything, we must put patients first. It is our obligation as health care workers to do no harm to our patients, who are among the most vulnerable in our community."
Generally, employers are able to require employees to get vaccinated. Clayton Craighead, an employment attorney in Houston, says there are the two exemption that both deal with accomodations.
"One of them is an accomodation under the American with Disabilities Act and the second exception is an accomodation on a religious basis. In order to establish an entitlement under the ADA, the employee would have to provide some sort of documentation from a doctor explaining why he or she, could not or should not receive the vaccination due to some medical condition or disability," Craighead explained.
He adds the employer is going to be required to provide the accomodation unless the employer can demonstrate doing so would create an undue burden on the organization.
"For example in the health industry, it probably would be very difficult to allow employees to not be vaccinated," he noted.
The second accomodation requires employees to demonstrate they have sincerely held religious belief that prohibits them from getting the vaccine.
"An employer, in order to avoid providing that accommodation of religion, has to also demonstrate undue burden but the standard is actually lower for religious accomodation than it is under the American with Disabilities Act," Craighead added.
I believe that forcing soldiers to take experimental medicine is against the Geneva Convention.
But nurses? Heck, you can force them to take anything.
She first should have gotten the antibody test, if she’s positive, NO VAX!
Not true.
Our government forced all military to receive Anthrax vaccine.
Refusal meant immediate termination.
Our government knew this vaccine was not effective against the type of Anthrax that Saddam Hussein had.
That didn’t matter.
All military were forced to take the vaccine.
The jab is experimental, and it ain’t a “vax”. I hope she sues.
if she gave them weeks notice that means she quit, she didn’t get fired...
I could be wrong, but I think it depends on the “rubberstamp”, so to speak. If FDA is willing to say “Hey, that Anthrax vaccine is supercool and we approve it!!” Then it’s not experimental, and can be forced on people. I have no idea if they said that.
I am pretty sure that the COVID vaccines have not been stamped “supercool” yet. So, they are still unapproved and experimental. I don’t think you can force the troops to take the jab.
meant to say two weeks notice...
Our government also knew that the Anthrax vaccine would cause serious autoimmune diseases and death to some of the military.
Remember, this vaccine was not effective against the Anthrax that Saddam Hussein had and our government knew it.
It didn’t matter.
All military were given the vaccine and some developed serious autoimmune diseases and some died from it.
Our government did this because the scientists wanted to see what would happen.
Ever work in a hospital? I have. And currently do.
Nurses are tough people.
Least the ones I know.
They don’t take s**t from anybody.
One of my renters, an unmarried black woman with three children, tested positive for Covid. No symptoms and the kids did not get sick. But the rest home where she was a prized employee, much loved by the clients and staff, sent her home for 14 days with no pay. So, her first day of no-work-no-pay, she applied at a nearby prison. They started her the next day. (In my entire working career, I never heard of a company doing that as the accountants want you to start at the beginning of a pay period.) The rest home lost her and she got a significant raise. She is the forth person I’ve rented to who had something similar happen. All of them ended up employed elsewhere.
The local McDonald’s will pay you $50 to come interview. One of my part time helpers said there are no-prior-knowledge jobs offering up to $17/hr to start. The work situation around here is better than I have ever witnessed with every employer hanging out the “Now Interviewing” shingle. The nurse will have no problem bettering her situation. Employers who do things like the no-paid-time-off, or firing employees for, essentially, political reasons, are cutting off their own noses.
This has all happened in the last 20 years.
It’s not something our government did hundreds of years ago.
The government, in these vaccine cases, is not the citizens of The United States.
It is a few people in a department making decisions based on politics, budgets and their personal beliefs and feelings.
Trust them at your risk.
Time for a class action lawsuit..
If the government can force Soldiers to receive a vaccine that they know is ineffective and will cripple some of the Soldiers receiving it, then they can try to do anything.
Makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable about the COVID-19 jabs...
16 months since this disease started, and our illustrious leaders have proven that they are incapable of eliminating it. They have failed in every way possible.
If the vax were working, the disease would have been eliminated. The disease is still here. As always, when a policy doesn’t work, the authors of the policy demand a strengthening of the policy that didn’t work. The vax hasn’t worked, and so they are forcing us to get the vax and firing us if we don’t.
The country has the same name as when I was a kid, but it’s not the same country.
In the meantime, Fuentes says she was prepared to wear masks at work and show lab results of COVID-19 antibodies since she’d recovered from the disease.
————-
Already recovered from the disease and STILL MUST GET THE VACCINE.
Think about that.......madness, absolute madness.
Let the lawsuits begin... forcing an unapproved experimental injection as a condition of employment...
So Feuntes uses her God-given smarts to think for herself, instead of being herded in a robot fashion, and this is what she gets? She used her own judgment. When did America become not free?
This country is nuts.
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