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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Sixty Rally On Behalf Of Fired Lesbian Nurse |
Current rating: 0 |
by Kimberlie Kranich
Email: kakranich (nospam) yahoomail.com (unverified!) |
17 Nov 2003
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Sixty Rally on Behalf of Fired Lesbian Nurse
Who Refused $35K discrimination settlement offers
by Carle Foundation Hospital |
(Urbana, IL) Sixty community residents rallied in support of fired lesbian nurse, Lynn Sprout, outside Carle Foundation Hospital today after Ms. Sprout rejected a $35,000 settlement offer in her discrimination case against the hospital.
The settlement would have prevented Ms. Sprout from talking publicly about her claims of discrimination. Ms. Sprout is seeking her job back and hospital-wide policy changes that would guarantee family and medical leave to all hospital employees, not just married heterosexual employees.
Supporters carried signs that read, “Equality at Carle,” “Family and Medical Leave for All Employees,” “Policy Change, Not Small Change” and “Carle Can’t Buy This Lesbian’s Silence.” Others distributed flyers with information about the case to drivers as they were stopped at the intersection of University and Coler Avenues in Urbana.
In Urbana, it is illegal to discriminate against employees based on their sexual orientation.
Ms. Sprout was fired from her job as a pediatric burse at Carle Foundation Hospital after 15 years of service. She was fired after revealing her sexual orientation when her same-sex partner of 18 years was dying. Instead of being allowed to take family and medical leave, Ms. Sprout says she was repeatedly told that partner was not her responsibility because she was "not family."
According to Ms. Sprout, she took vacation days when her partner needed her care or had to be hospitalized in St. Louis. Ms. Sprout did this up until the day of her partner’s death. And when Ms. Sprout didn't have any vacation days left to attend her partner’s funeral, she says her staff donated theirs. Ms. Sprout’s partner eventually died and Ms. Sprout was later fired.
The hospital denies any wrongdoing and stands by its nondiscrimination policy. A hospital spokesperson has said Ms. Sprout was fired for “poor” job performance.
A hearing to try Ms. Sprout’s case is tentatively set for the week of January 27 before the Urbana Human Relations Commission.
Carle Foundation Hospital has received bad press recently in the Wall Street Journal for its medical debt practices. According to an October 30, 2003 story by Lucette Lagnado, the Champaign County Board of Review scrutinized the hospital’s application for tax exemption renewal. The scrutiny came after Champaign County Health Care Consumers (http://www.prairienet.org/cchcc/) revealed the hospital’s practice of issuing arrest warrants for people unable to pay their bills. “In September 2002, for the first time in memory, the board recommended that a local institution be stripped of its property-tax exemptions on the grounds that it wasn’t truly charitable, “ according to the Wall Street Journal article. “In a memo to the state revenue department, the board wrote that Carle’s status as a charity ‘is in serious question given the scope and nature of lawsuits brought against patient and customers.’ About five months later, on March 14, 2003, the state denied the board’s request.
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