Draxel Forg: What’s happening?
12th Doctor: Right on cue. Take a look, Eagle men, from Shanroth, planet of the lawyers, that’s one of their justice cruisers, action lawsuit class I shouldn’t wonder.
Doctor Who (Big Finish) The Best Laid Plans 2019
Ladies & Gentlemen:
I would like to call to your attention the recent spate of healthcare workers doing the following:
- Openly calling for the death of political opponents
- Openly calling for healthcare workers to injure patients with political views they dislike
- Openly calling for healthcare workers to not treat patients with political views they dislike
- Actually refusing to treat people due to political opinions
- Openly taking public political opinions as representatives of the industry or individual healthcare facilities
Needless to say this may be problematic in terms of publicity but I would like to point out a far greater risk to your business than simply bad press.
Medicine, for all its advancements is still an inexact science.
Unlike engineering where the tolerances for various metals and structures can be predicted if the products are properly made, different people will react to treatments differently. There is always a chance that a problem will arise with any med or any treatment or any procedure.
Of course there is always the factor of human error which can be reduced by vigilance but by nature never completely eliminated. Which is why Doctors & Nurses and healthcare workers with any sense carry malpractice insurance.
Now consider for a moment a conservative who comes to one of your facilities, a facility where the doctor, or the nurse, or the person passing meds or even the kitchen staff has been posting on public social media their disgust at conservatives &/or calling for their harm.
Think of what happens if an open conservative comes to your facility for any sort of treatment and has
- A reaction to meds
- An adverse reaction to a procedure
- A bad complication
- An unexpected death
In any of those cases the patient and/or the family naturally questions why this has taken place. What kind of conclusion might be reached if any of those online political activities come to light concerning any person involved in his or her treatment? How fast will the family conclude that this was not part of the normal risk of treatment but a deliberate act against a perceived “enemy”?
How quick do you think a family like that will decide to sue?
How fast will such a suit become a cause célèbre in the conservative community?
How quickly will pols seeking to make hay grab onto such a case?
How much would that cause previous patients and their families to give scrutiny to any past visit that did not have a satisfactory outcome?
And most importantly will the insurance company that covers your facility decide at best to raise the rates they are charging because of the risk or fight any payout on the grounds that a deliberate failure to provide the proper care is a criminal act?
All of those risks are after the fact, consider this:
A medical college that openly pushes to radicalize doctors or nurses to consider those who don’t share an instructors hatred of conservatives or ICE or Trump as not worthy of treatment.
Can you imagine the risk you will have if you hire a graduate of such a program? Can you picture all of those consequences I already named exacerbated by hiring a person who has done any of those things listed above or marched in events during their college years? The negligence argument writes itself.
That being said I offer the following suggestions:
- Instruct your HR departments to screen potential hires social media posts for any such statements supporting violence as noted above.
- Instruct your HR departments to inform colleges that train medical professionals that candidates from any facility whose program is even perceived to encourage bias based on political affiliation will not be considered for any position
- Discharge any person who has precipitated in any of the above actions
- If discharge is not possible due to contract limitation give written notice that any such behavior as noted above will result in immediate discharge from the facility & a lawsuit to recover damages by the facility
- Implement immediate training for existing staff to make it clear that any such action will result in immediate discharge & a possible lawsuit to recover damages
- Implement training for all new hires to make clear that any such action will result in immediate discharge & a possible lawsuit to recover damages.
- Make such a policy an official policy of your facility
Such actions will protect you and your facility from the enormous financial risks involved in this behavior contrary to the best traditions of the medical profession.
It’s your call.
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