WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced a lawsuit against MedStar Harbor Hospital for allegations of disability discrimination.
“The law is clear - an employer must provide a reasonable accommodation for an employee's disability unless the employer can show that doing so would be an undue hardship,” EEOC regional attorney Debra M. Lawrence said.
Jerome Alston worked as a respiratory therapist at MedStar. Alston takes a medication that compromises his immune system and increases risk of an infection due to renal failure and a kidney transplant that occurred nine years prior to his employment with MedStar.
MedStar allegedly provided him a “work-around” for the issue, excusing him from working in negative pressure rooms. In November 2013, although, EEOC alleges Alston requested such a work-around and was denied and abruptly fired.
"It is disturbing and ironic when a hospital, which is dedicated to caring for the health of its patients, ignores the medical concerns of an employee, refuses to even discuss providing a needed workplace modification and, instead, fires him because of his disability," said Spencer H. Lewis, Jr., district director of EEOC's Philadelphia District Office.