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Tulsa's St. John settles EEOC lawsuit
 
By Staff Reports
Published: 11/18/2009  2:33 PM
Last Modified: 11/18/2009  3:12 PM

St. John Health System, Inc. of Tulsa will pay $100,000 and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency announced Wednesday.

According to a release, the EEOC had charged that the company violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by failing to reasonably accommodate a hearing-impaired operating room scrub technician.

LaQuita Reherman had been employed by St. John for about six years when she was removed from her scrub technician position in March 2006 after several physicians complained about her being hard of hearing, the release states.

Reherman wears hearing aids in both ears, the EEOC said, but would have been able to hear doctors’ instructions adequately if it were not for their practice of playing loud music in the operating room. These disturbances, coupled with her hearing impairment, caused the problems, according to the EEOC.

Reherman told St. John that she needed assistance in finding another position, but the hospital made no effort to assist her. The hospital simply put her in another position temporarily and then told her to find a new job in the hospital system, the EEOC said. St. John terminated Reherman in June 2006 after she proved unable to find a vacant position.

“St. John should have done more for Ms. Reherman than tell her to locate a vacant position within the hospital system," EEOC Senior Trial Attorney Melvin Kennedy said. "It is encouraging that this lawsuit settled so quickly and that St. John agreed to reporting provisions in the consent decree that will allow the EEOC to monitor its future responses to reasonable accommodation requests.”

In a statement released by St. John, director of community relations Cheena Pazzo said St. John would not comment on the specific details of this case.

"However, the organization is a committed equal opportunity employer, providing a work environment that is both safe and is sensitive to the needs of all employees, including those with disabilities," Pazzo said.

In addition to paying Reherman $100,000 in damages, St. John also agreed to provide disability discrimination training to all management and supervisory employees and to report all requests for reasonable accommodation to the EEOC for the next three years.

By Staff Reports

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HONES, T-Town (11/18/2009 2:38:53 PM)
GOOD. Everyone wants people with disabilities to work but they fail to see that there needs to be a common understanding to help them get the environment right for work. The surgeons need to get off their high horses.
Report Comment
FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (11/18/2009 2:40:34 PM)
The ADA act is no joke. Schools should especially pay attention to this judgment.
Report Comment
upbeatontulsa, (11/18/2009 2:51:17 PM)
If the surgeon thats cutting on me likes loud music, loud music it is. Appreciate the woman's plight, but the person with the knife is the head person in the room and should get whatever they feel is necessary for them to do the best job possible
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tricky ricky, (11/18/2009 3:20:45 PM)
upbeatontulsa: maybe you will be allowed one of these days to have to move around in a wheel chair or even worst blind. comments like your make me puke now i have written it i feel bette total jerk
Report Comment
dork74, Broken Arrow (11/18/2009 3:22:47 PM)
upbeatontulsa,

Unfortunately the law states otherwise, employers must grant any reasonable accommodation to anyone with a disability. Asking the surgeons to turn down (or even off) their music would not be deemed unreasonable in a hospital setting. If the person in question were a waitress at Cain's ballroom, that would be a different story...
Report Comment
Thunder196, Tulsa (11/18/2009 3:57:22 PM)
I guess when they advertise providing compassionate care they didn't mean employees. Another advertising slogan bites the dust.
Report Comment
What the ?, Tulsa (11/18/2009 4:25:08 PM)
Yeah, well, some people also know how to play the system.
Report Comment
tricky ricky, (11/18/2009 4:35:52 PM)
she worked there for six years not 6 months. most people could not last that long if she was playing the system, but that your opinion.
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What the ?, Tulsa (11/18/2009 4:40:51 PM)
Did she work as a scrub tech the entire 6 years or just the last few months of employment? Just asking.
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anm1135, (11/18/2009 4:55:39 PM)
tricky ricky, get over yourself. Wishing someone confined to wheelchair or blindness?

Your comment kind of makes me wonder who the real jerk is...

The poster was just expressing their opinion and you resort to name calling and wishing horrible things upon them. I agree if the doctor wishes to have loud music, for whatever reason, then let them have the loud music.

Having said that, I do think SJMC should have done more to assist the employee in finding another position instead of just leaving it up to her.
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tricky ricky, (11/18/2009 5:24:06 PM)
anm1135

he showed no concern for her and i was showing no concern for him.
what the ?
she had to leave that position- probably for less pay- from what i read she only request they turn it down not off. over
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FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (11/18/2009 8:52:51 PM)
OK, if the hospital understood better the problems she was facing, I sure they could have done something to accommodate her. I think really the quickness of settlement is indicative of their sense of responsibility in her case.
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Corvetteguy, Tulsa (11/18/2009 9:02:21 PM)
"practice of playing loud music in the operating room"

arrogance.........?
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confederateU, (11/18/2009 9:48:07 PM)
now ain't that saintly of the hospital......

they should've met with one of their godly ones and prayed over their insensitive way of besmirching a person with a disability. kinda makes you wonder what the higher ups think of disabled patient$ !!

hospitals make me $ick.
Report Comment
Stratolifter, (11/18/2009 9:58:19 PM)
Patient's can also experience disability bias in hospitals.

TheAngryPatient dot com is an interesting patient diary that addresses some of that discrimination involving a patient who was half paralyzed, couldn't speak, and was treated like they were a completely paralyzed idiot vegetable.

It's a really sad story and unfortunately, working in a hospital, it's all too common.
Report Comment
Jinxed, CA (11/18/2009 10:02:53 PM)
Doctors playing loud music in the operating room - HOW UTTERLY UNPROFESSIONAL and DANGEROUS!! WHO does that and what kind of hospital ALLOWS that to begin with? I'd LOVE TO KNOW who those danged doctors were. YOu can bet I would tell everybody I know NOT TO USE THEM! Better yet, if St. John allows that - don't go there!
Report Comment
Jinxed, CA (11/18/2009 10:03:43 PM)
wonder if they were blasting Black Sabbath or something?
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TRS, T.B.D. (11/18/2009 10:27:41 PM)
These surgeons commit their lives to what they do and she was not someone I would want in my room. In an emergency surgery if you can not communicate 100% in a loud room it can cost a life and that made her a liability. The other jobs available with her experience in the hospital are below what she was doing as a scrub, so instead of taking a lesser position it is easier to sue.

As for a doctor being unprofessional playing music in the OR, that is a load. Many people play music at their desk at work, and may be it was Black Sabbath, but does that say anything about ability? NO! Surgery is a different world and if you have not been there, you wouldn't understand.
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FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (11/18/2009 11:36:46 PM)
Music help a lot of people focus and relax. If my brain surgeon wants to listen to polka while he's removing my cerebral cortex, I'll buy the CD for him.
Report Comment
Elusive, Owasso (11/19/2009 12:32:23 AM)
I am a former certified surgical tech aka same thing as an operating room scrub tech. There are few other positions she could have moved to in the hospital. She was trained in that specific discipline. It's a shame that a hospital of all places would not have the compassion to accomodate her disability.

Surgeons in all hospitals listen to music in the O.R. it is relaxing for them in that cold sterile environment. I was never in a position where the music was so loud that no one in that small room could hear what the other said.
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Lutheran, Glenpool (11/19/2009 10:34:56 AM)
It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Report Comment
mrm, Glenpool (11/19/2009 10:52:09 AM)
"Lutheran, Glenpool" Love the comment. A good one to remember.
Report Comment
reckless abandon, Tulsa (11/19/2009 9:37:25 PM)
I am a RN, worked in surgery at SJMC and know precisely the conditions under which the woman was attempting to work. The loud music is a real safety issue--not only can the nurses and techs not hear the surgeons, they also cannot hear the alarms on equipment in the room. It is a clear violation of OSHA and JACCHO standards. And I can assure you that this is not the 1st case of an employee losing their job as a result of disability or on the job injury--I am glad someone has finally held SJMC accountable.
 

 
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