A Texas hospital has declared war on the scourge of obese nurses:
A Victoria [Texas] hospital already embroiled in a discrimination lawsuit filed by doctors of Indian descent has instituted a highly unusual hiring policy: It bans job applicants from employment for being too overweight.
The Citizens Medical Center policy, instituted a little more than a year ago, requires potential employees to have a body mass index of less than 35 — which is 210 pounds for someone who is 5-foot-5, and 245 pounds for someone who is 5-foot-10. It states that an employee’s physique “should fit with a representational image or specific mental projection of the job of a healthcare professional,” including an appearance “free from distraction” for hospital patients.
“The majority of our patients are over 65, and they have expectations that cannot be ignored in terms of personal appearance,” hospital chief executive David Brown said in an interview. “We have the ability as an employer to characterize our process and to have a policy that says what’s best for our business and for our patients.”
It all sounds so, well, high-schoolish, and I don’t think the CEO is seventeen, though he’s acting like it. I mean, can you get any more shallow? Since when does physical appearance have anything to do with competence or worth or dignity of any health care professional?
Or maybe David Brown doesn’t really believe nurses actually have skills — we just stand around as decoration, lookin’ pretty.
And fitting the ”representational image” of hospital employees to meet patient “expectations?” What the hell does that mean, anyway? If patients expect this (and this is a pretty common “representation”)
A representational image of a nurse
then hiring practices should make sure all nurses are boobalicious? What if the patients want all-white nurses? Or all females? Or no Muslims?
The man is a bit of a dink, obviously. I can only imagine how valued overweight nurses employed by this hospital must feel.
The article goes on to note that this David Brown, CEO of Citizens Medical Center, has some issues. In 2007 he wrote memo about some foreign-born physicians in which he stated: “I feel a sense of disgust but am more concerned with what this means to the future of the hospital as more of our Middle-Eastern-born physicians demand leadership roles and demand influence.” He continued, “It will change the entire complexion of the hospital and create a level of fear among our employees.”
Needless to say, there is an discrimination lawsuit over that.
So let’s summarize what the leadership at Citizens Medical Center believes: scary scary fat nurses scaring patients. Scary scary dark-skinned physicians scaring employees and patients.
Clearly a place where I would want to work. Or be treated.
COMMENTS ( 1 )
posted on 29 March at 02:22
Actually the whole Citizens Medical Center fat nurse issue is so he doesn't have to pay insurance for nurses who want surgery to lose weight.
This is also the same a-hole who limits the number of sick days a nurse can use in a year, even though they earn more than they are allowed to use. For a profession largely female and with families he is the least accommodating prick I have ever dealt with. He also pays less than most hospitals in larger centers and would rather train a new nurse rather than pay to retain one with experience.