Fat? This Hospital Won't Hire You...

[one_voice]

Say you are 5 feet 10 inches tall, weigh 250 pounds, and are applying for an administrative job at a hospital. If it happens to be with the Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, Texas, then don't bother applying -- you are too heavy for their liking.

The southeastern Texas hospital has adopted an unusual policy in which it will not hire anyone with a body mass index over 35, or 230 pounds for anyone 5 feet 8 inches; 260 pounds for anyone 6 feet. In an interview with The Texas Tribune, which first reported on the BMI-based policy, CMC's chief executive, David Brown, defended the practice, saying the hospital had a responsibility to cater to its patients' preferences.

"The majority of our patients are over 65, and they have expectations that cannot be ignored in terms of personal appearance," said Brown. "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."

*snip*

Still, most experts agree that obese and overweight Americans -- slightly more than two out of three adults fall into that group -- have few legal protections when it comes to workplace discrimination. Overweight Americans are only protected from discrimination if their weight is registered as a formal disability under the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

*snip*

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/04/04/fat-this-hospital-wont-hire-you/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl5|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D149263

[Lionessa]

1. First they came for the smokers.....

We told you! But NO! you (the general you, not the OP author) want to vilify smoking but expect other health determining behaviors to be sacrocsanct. HAH!

[unblock]

4. perhaps ironically, i'd bet that smoking is not a disqualifier from working at that hospital.

of course we've all heard of smoking being confined to designated areas, and higher insurance premiums for smokers, but i've never heard of a hospital refusing to hire smokers altogether.

on edit: after googling a bit, apparently some hospitals DO refuse to hire smokers.
i'm not familiar with that concept up here in new england at least; you can easily find hospital workers smoking outside at just about any time of day or night.

[Lionessa]

5. Whole cities and counties gov'ts, and hospitals, and USSC says it's

okay to not hire a smoker.

Sorry, you're wrong. Smokers are now often not even allowed to smoke in the parking lot. Can't smoke even as an adult within 4 city blocks of a school in one city I lived in.

Sorry, you're wrong. The county I just moved from wasn't even happy with your sworn statement, they required hair tests to prove you hadn't smoked in over a year, sorry skin heads and short haired folks, I guess, but they publish is as a pre-employment condition and will terminate if found smoking, no rehab for new hires, and old hires get on shot at rehab

[XanaDUer]

11. At my last job some workers got snagged

For smoking at the fugging bus stop going home one night!

Amerikkka land of the free!

[XanaDUer]

9. One hospital went from hiring them to not

New hirees may not smoke. Offerings of smoking cessation and Chantix to current workers so they could quit to keep their hospital jobs. I'm not a fan of smoking but some of this stuff does get intrusive. Oh and Security told employees we were to narc on any employees caught surreptitiously puffing.

[movonne]

17. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing...I like not

having people who smoke around me (and I am a reformed smoker) but then again it is just another freedom taken away and that is scary..

[XanaDUer]

2. This is getting to be SOP

Worked for two hospitals (got a job back in civil service finally) and they scan your bmi annually, had to sign an affidavit that i did not smoke (I don't), take you blood each year and check it for nicotine each year ( and God knows what else they'rechecking for). I am almost five foot nine, female, and wear a size 8-10, and they told me I was slightly overweight. Hospitals are stressful unplesant places to work in anyway, so I decided to chuck it.

[Ilsa]

3. And they wonder why no one

Is happy with their job with their employer constantly harassing them about one thing or another.
Everyone has to look just like each other. Total homogeneity. Never mind that they are already wearing uniforms.
This is the county hospital. They shouldn't be discriminating like this. If a patient doesnt like the tattoos on the nurse's arm, maybe they should either ignore the tats or find another hospital that caters to their whims.
My guess is that they want more employees to do bariatric surgery so they can make more $$$.
I've heard over the years that they are a crappy place to work with even crappier health insurance.

[XanaDUer]

7. I got over my assumption that hospitals

Have the best insurance. The last one was better than the one before it, though. Among things to sign- if I owed my hospital money for surgeries etc they could garnish my wages. Yeppers. One good benefit was a free flu shot per year.

[Ilsa]

19. My health insurance co sent out a

coupon card for a free flu shot. You'd think they cover it for free if they could just get the employee to take it.

[XanaDUer]

20. Quite a few hospital employees had to quit

Over not wanting to get annual flu shots. I believe in getti g flu shots btw, but i'm not sure if the average person knows how into your body hospitals are with employees. A lot of nurses are overweight, but stress and bad shifts also have roles in some of this. NOt just the person. Two hospital workers volunteered to go on a very public weightloss quest and start a blog that employees could read. It gave their weight and height- it took a lot of chops to do that and it is admirable. I wouldn't do it.

[Ilsa]

23. That's what I remember

about nursing schools and my early days as a nurse working shift work in a hospital: bad dining habits, weight gain, stress, poor sleep. I couldn't get pregnant, either with all the stress and diurnal stress. In nursing school, students usually gained weight, but a few were anorexic and lost weight. Once again, it was the stress.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. Before long the only people who will be qualified are whites who are fit between the ages of

21 to 50 (if your lucky). You better know how to dress, talk and be sexy. All others forget about it. You are in danger. We are headed for a 2 tier system. The halves and the half nots. Rednecks you better be paying attention cause you don't fall in that half zone. This is the last expectable discrimination.

[snooper2]

8. I did a google image search for 5' 10" 250 lbs

And this is the first image that popped up

[slampoet]

21. What a fattie.

[XanaDUer]

10. Oh and they Outsource this body-fluid info

To third party companies , too. You sign in to see your results. The data changed on my BP twice and I called to complain. Nothing done. I will let nothing less than looming homelessness get me to work in a hospital.

[Horse with no Name]

12. I find it telling that this is only for "administrative" positions

The execs want eye candy secretaries and they want to screen them out.

I notice it didn't say nurses....when I worked nights, I gained weight--it throws off your metabolism and you end up gaining weight.

[Lionessa]

13. From the nurses I've met, floor nurses, it's because

only the administrative personnel have paid health insurance, which probably effects their "right" to have a "reason" to deny smokers and fat people, not so much because of eye candy.

[Iris]

14. Wait...they're doing this because the majority of their patients are over 65?

What's that got to do with it?

[BlueIris]

15. In the article I read (not this one) the hospital admitted

they were doing that because the seniors in the hospital (allegedly) wanted the staff to look a certain way. Awful. The thing I find most offensive about this policy is that it has nothing to do with an obese person's ability to do a job or not. It is only about appearance.

“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.”

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-health-resources/health-reform-and-texas/victoria-hospital-wont-hire-very-obese-workers/

[XanaDUer]

16. Weird

We were constantly told that health workers have to model to their community, good health behaviors like I guess ,slimness, not smoking etc.

[slampoet]

22. In other words we are feeding the paranoid prejudices that are part of the aging process....

....because we would rather be bigots along with our elderly clients than actually heal and help these irritating old farts.

[Horse with no Name]

18. Interesting info

http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/texas/victoria/compare

http://digitaltexan.net/2012/austin-local-news/victoria-hospital-hire-obese-workers/article30180/#.T3zJUNnX044
This is their policy:
"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.'

http://www.citizensmedicalcenter.org/Bariatrics/
This is their promotion:
Severe obesity is a disease. It is not a character defect, or simply lack of will power. It’s a medical condition that affects almost 20 million Americans, and it’s the greatest health care problem in the United States today. People with obesity are at a greater risk for conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and heart problems. Excess weight impacts your health, your self-esteem, and your relationships.

Diet and exercise are ineffective in severe obesity. Chances are good you’ve been down that road before. You’ve done “yo-yo” dieting which only hurts your body and increases your feelings of hopelessness. Each diet failure makes you feel like a failure.
But there is hope.

[Odin2005]

24. This is the logical end result of seeing obesity as a moral fault rather than a medical problem.