AltaMed Health Services Corp. is being sued by one of its former nurses, who alleges she was wrongfully fired in 2021 because the Catholic plaintiff objected to a job requirement that she be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Janet Lopez also maintains she offered to be tested daily in order to keep her job. Her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges wrongful termination, religious creed discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination and retaliation.
Lopez seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. An AltaMed representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Thursday.
Lopez was hired as a licensed vocational nurse at AltaMed in September 2019 and was paid $50,000 annually, the suit states. Raised Catholic and a practitioner of that faith, she believes she is barred from taking any of the COVID-19 vaccines because they use cell lines derived from aborted children, the suit states.
Lopez was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April 2020, recovered and believes she now has natural immunity to the virus, the suit states. Last August, AltaMed directed all employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus and Lopez sought a religious exemption, but she was told by the company that none would be offered, the suit states. She was advised to be vaccinated by the next month or be fired, the suit states.
Lopez complained to management during that same time period that she saw children coming into the clinic with post-vaccination side effects that were cited by their parents, including chest pain, the suit states. However, Lopez alleges doctors were deliberately not reporting those side effects to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, according to the suit.
Lopez emailed AltaMed management stating that in order to keep her job, she was willing to take COVID-19 tests every single day, if necessary, and would avoid going to work if she had coronavirus symptoms, the suit states. She also sent the company a copy of her antigen test, which showed she already had very high antibodies to the virus because she had the disease earlier, her suit states.
However, AltaMed fired Lopez on Sept. 30, the suit states. It would not have been an undue hardship for AltaMed to keep Lopez as an employee, and the company made no effort to accommodate her religious beliefs, the suit states.
The firing of Lopez has left her with ongoing mental suffering and emotional distress as well as anxiety, high blood pressure, nausea, insomnia, shortness of breath, headaches and depression, the suit states.
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William says
People and their religious exemptions. Imagine the following.
-a Muslim wants to work at BevMo but doesn’t want to handle bottles of alcohol or work the register or sweep.
-a Christian Scientist wants to work in a hospital. Go figure.
-a pro-lifeer wants to work at an abortion clinic but not do anything that assists abortions.
on and on it goes. When you enter the work force you have to play by the rules. God fearing people should know that about rules.
If you don’t want to play by the rules that everyone else does at a job, God will find you another job. Right?
Beloved says
God had the bronze snake He told Moses to raise up destroyed because people began to worship the created rather than the Creator. We live in times where God is trying to return people to live by faith and to not lean on idols. God gives and He takeths away. We put too much faith into people. It’s not to say that people are bad and they don’t do good works , but the moment you remove the grace and mercy of God from the equation, you lose sight of life. I can see God’s hand in this. It is good news. Nurses don’t need to feel responsible for carrying the weight of this pandemic on their shoulders. God is a God of miracles. He is not restricted to the limitations we ourselves impose. If it is God’s will for a person to live, they will live, with or without medical treatment. Showing gratitude to God, and love and kindness to our brothers and sisters is all we are really asked to do.
Yes, Yes, Yes says
Amen to that dear brother…. Praise the Lord
Larry says
What if you look at from the view of God gave these scientists and Doctors the ability to create and distribute the vaccine to save people and that is his will, just for a change of perspective?
Crazy? says
Isn’t it crazy how one minute these people are considered Hero’s and the next minute they are fired?
Here is a person that wants to work with the sick and dying and she is being refused, my niece is a RN
and works in a hospital and they have been told that even if they test positive for Covid they still have to
go to work. I just don’t get all this craziness.