Terminated due to medical illness or illness's

[DISABLEDINUSA]

Hello
I will try to keep it simple.
I work for a Company based in Cali, their Corp office is in Canada under parent Company names.I work from home doing Tech support for internet related issues.
When they hired me four years ago, I placed on the app that I was disabled (Mental Health) Last year I had a brain injury and needed brain surgery took a fmla for 3 months and went back to work. I slowy start to notice that things changed for me, I could no longer work the 50-60 hours a week I used to work, I would get major migranes and headaches when speaking to customers on headsets if there was loud noices in the ear piece and so on. I would forget what I was doing while talking to cx(I hid this as I was in denial myself) I did not want anyone to know I was embarrased and did not want to admit that I was forgetting.
I started requesting a work/shift change accomendation.

I was having issues with the programs on the PC, that caused their programs to load very slow and the company always has issues with screen freezings and apps loading slow, cx get angry as I can not pull up their info in a timely maner and we were not allowed to say , sorry my computer is loading slow to customer. I noticed my wrist swelling very bad, I was having to pull the mouse hard due to porgram slowness and so on.
I woke up a few months later and I could not move the arm I type and worked with, thus I went to Dr, two different Dr's. A Rehuemotologist, and a Sports Dr for sport injury.
Both Said I have Tendonitis and carpal tunnel . They sent me home and had 2 nurses added on to the 2 nurses I already had to come and show me how to sit at the pc the right way and rest my arm and so on. I get medicare and that is who paid for it.
They put me in a sling and a wrist sling and it was very hard for me to adjust to typing, dr gave me a letter saying no typing for two weeks, I went to work anyway...u do what u have to do to feed your family.
Prior to this the dr placed me on anti depr and said I need to see a Phyc due to stress with my job.
I talked with my sup and told him that the Dr said I would have to have surgery on my wrist and shoulder.
I was not cleared for the surgery so I have not had it.

One day I went to work and started having chest pains and my son called the medics, I could not speak, and ribs were hurting bad, due to the fact that I have stroked, I have diabetes and high blood pressure they treated it as a cardiac, so they rushed me to the ER. I later found that I had Laryngitis .
Before the medics rushed me off my family contated my sup via email and called the attendace line. My sup called me while in the ambulance and the medic told me I had to get off the phone, the sup told me we would have to chat/talk.
The next day I was terminated due to medical illness.
I was terminated last month due to medical illness (so they claim)
What can I do?
Please pardon my spelling and grammer.

Thanks in advance.

 

[theretoo]

immediately file a complaint with your local federal eeoc office

i'm sorry, but i have to spout off here. i am in a similar boat as you with a current case pending against my former employer for disability discrimination. i am so tired of employers thinking that they don't have to comply with the laws in this regard. i am at a total loss as to what these people are thinking. i know a lot of employers think they can do whatever they want to do due to 'at will' bs, and maybe that is it, maybe they think that they have the power to d owhatever it is they want to because of that.
the best thing anyone can do is to hold these employer's to task. often times, particularly for someone with a disability, or multiple disabilities, it is difficult enough to lose your lively hood due to ignorant employers, however, to then have to be in a position to have to defend your own rights that have been clearly violated, is at best, severely emotionally draining.

the eeoc will investigate and they are suppose to go in and 'solve' the problem with the employer as well, but i will tell you, it is in your own best interest to hire an employment law atty for yourself. let them handle all the bs involved that the employer will continue to throw at you during the course. most employment law atty's will take a case on a continency basis, meaning they don't get paid until the case is won or settled in your favor.


http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/howtofil.html

http://www.eeocoffice.com/States/texas/texas.htm

http://www.texasdiscriminationlaws.com/disabilitydiscrimination.php

 

[DISABLEDINUSA]

Bless you.
I contacted a labor law Attorney yesterday.
These people told me I was terminated due to medical reasons and could return as soon as I was no longer under Dr care.
I will always be under Dr care, I have diabetes and other mutiple chronic illness, thus they know I can't return if that is the case.
I forgot to mention that when my internal med dr filled out the form 3 times for a reasonable accomodation they denied it many many times.
Thank you so much.

 

[Patricia_Young]

"Reasonable" is subjective. The employer doesn't have to comply with the accommodations the physician suggests. Was there a discussion about what would have been reasonable in their opinion?

 

[theretoo]

true, the employer does not have to provide the requested accomodation and can suggest other options, it is called the 'interactive process' in working with the employee to determine the best accomodation that the employer can provide.

an employer, cannot, under any circumstances, require that an employee be 100 percent fit to return to work from fmla or disability. they have options of providing light duty and making accomodations for an employee including moving an employee to a different job. there are so many options that an employer has to accomodate a disabled employee, they truly have no excuses not to. it is a hard sell for an employer to prove 'undue hardship' in providing reasonable accomodation for a disabled employee.

best wishes to you

 

[DISABLEDINUSA]

"Reasonable" is subjective. The employer doesn't have to comply with the accommodations the physician suggests. Was there a discussion about what would have been reasonable in their opinion?

After brain surgery in Oct I returned to work, they increased our hours and changed my shift to evenings (very busy shift) thus they wanted me to work 8-10 hours per day, the request was for them to lower my hours, the dr wrote on the form that I needed to work 3-4 hours a day only (Part time)
They made me go back to the dr many times asking me to put on the form what was my disability and so on.
The Dr responded to every question on their form, he used medical terms like short term mem loss and visual field defect and they wanted me to tell them what that means and why the need to change and so on.
I was so stressed from this back n forth...it was a nightmare.
I felt like I was being singled out and when they changed my shift and hours I had no say in it.
I had to work it, or find another job.

 

[DISABLEDINUSA]

true, the employer does not have to provide the requested accomodation and can suggest other options, it is called the 'interactive process' in working with the employee to determine the best accomodation that the employer can provide.

an employer, cannot, under any circumstances, require that an employee be 100 percent fit to return to work from fmla or disability. they have options of providing light duty and making accomodations for an employee including moving an employee to a different job. there are so many options that an employer has to accomodate a disabled employee, they truly have no excuses not to. it is a hard sell for an employer to prove 'undue hardship' in providing reasonable accomodation for a disabled employee.

best wishes to you

Thanks theretoo.

 

[theretoo]

i wish you the best

i have a parent that underwent brain surgery in the past few years, as well

i believe you clearly have a case and i wish you the best of luck