Job

[Cuteguy69]

So for the first time in my

life since I lurn I was hiv positive 

that I got really stress about

after working for the hospital in the office for over 6 months I got a email 

by the main office a form to fill for pres employment 

and in one guestion is mark if am hiv positive what is my vl and cd4 count

in the country where I live it’s against 

the law to ask a employee that

the only person in my life that know my status is my wife

so I have fallen to regular to replacement now since I didn’t fill the form

i think it’s disgremination 

[bbpoznow]

it  is discrimination  and   would take it up with HR     

[Collar4chemboys]

On 11/3/2021 at 7:56 PM, Cuteguy69 said:

So for the first time in my

life since I lurn I was hiv positive 

that I got really stress about

after working for the hospital in the office for over 6 months I got a email 

by the main office a form to fill for pres employment 

and in one guestion is mark if am hiv positive what is my vl and cd4 count

in the country where I live it’s against 

the law to ask a employee that

the only person in my life that know my status is my wife

so I have fallen to regular to replacement now since I didn’t fill the form

i think it’s disgremination 

Are you unionized ?  You can email the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Do you remember what exactly does the forms says and how it came around ?   If they are in the wrong which sounds like it , the tribunal can order the hospital to compensate you the wage difference.   

 

Not knowing if you are union mber or not , there may also be other provision under the O.Reg , specifically Under ESA the Employment Standard Act .. private message me .. I can give you some.optioms .  I guess you just have to pay with your hole 😂

 

[Cuteguy69]

The union told me to let it in god hands 

and after I told them I refused to fill the form 

I have to find a new contract 

2 weeks before Christmas I was cut 

[PozCubBtm]

31 minutes ago, Cuteguy69 said:

The union told me to let it in god hands 

and after I told them I refused to fill the form 

I have to find a new contract 

2 weeks before Christmas I was cut 

hmmm i bet a good attorney may want to hear your case...thats discrimination to ask details about your health for a job...tbh if thats they way they roll maybe you are better off without them..

[hntnhole]

1 hour ago, Cuteguy69 said:

The union told me to let it in god hands 

I'm not familiar with the minutia of the law in your country, but I can't imagine any union that would respond with that drivel.  I hope you take PozCubBtm's advice above.

[bbpoznow]

I would  get a good attorney  , as far as I know in Ontario it is against the law to ask questions like that .  get  one fast 

[killer52lt]

Very much so illegal to ask in Ontario. Don't bother with the labor board. Go straight for lawyer, you'll get FAR more in compensation.

[Guest]

I agree with the people above about lawyering up.  

At least ask what your chances are, or try a labour union to help you out if you're a member.   I don't know Canadian law, but I hope you can fight this!!
 

[senzasella]

IDK, I'm not so sure about this. Having heard only a limited set of facts, a few important points jumped out to me:

• he works for a hospital "in the office"
• he was asked to affirm his Status AND his VL and CD4 counts
• this was not the only question on the form, there were others not about HIV status presumably

I think this is more routine than it appears at first glance. If i had to guess, this is about the hospital shielding itself from legal liability more than anything else. I would almost certainly bet that Ottawa law has an exception for health employers. These are settings where the accidental transmission of bodily fluids is highly regulated and managed. So much so that hospitals keep a playbook for what to do when it happens and log every single occurrence. 

Now I couldn't care less if the person administering my healthcare is poz or neg. But if they are poz, then there is a REAL risk of that person infecting a neg patient if they aren't managing their health and remaining undetectable.

The form isn't targeting you for being POZ, it's making sure that if you are poz you are also undetectable so that you aren't putting patients in undue risk.

The last thing I would say is that while you may think your wife is the only one who knows your status, there are likely many MANY parties in your Health provider chain and the Government, thanks to your single payer health system,  who do know your status. You shouldn't be surprised that they all talk to each other as well. While I deeply believe in your right to reveal your status when and to whom on your terms, if you've been fired over this already I'm SURE your employer and your union can deduce what your hesitation to fill it out was tied to. The ship has largely sailed on your original privacy concerns if what you say about your employer and union are true.

I wouldn't feel good about signing it either, but I also can appreciate that a hospital NEEDS to ask these questions to protect patients and staff. That's what this is really about. 

[Guest]

If you don't mind I have some comments and questions about your contribution to this discussion.

1 hour ago, senzasella said:

he works for a hospital "in the office"

I'm not sure why you use the quotation marks.

 

1 hour ago, senzasella said:

Now I couldn't care less if the person administering my healthcare is poz or neg. But if they are poz, then there is a REAL risk of that person infecting a neg patient if they aren't managing their health and remaining undetectable.
The form isn't targeting you for being POZ, it's making sure that if you are poz you are also undetectable so that you aren't putting patients in undue risk.

When @Cuteguy69 works in the office, there is no chance of him inadvertently infecting any patients. If you question if this is truly the case and if he really doesn't work with patients, perhaps you could ask him in stead of presuming he's not telling the truth.

Besides that a lot of - and especially straight or bisexual - people don't know their HIV-status. A recent infection with HIV makes someone highly infectious and at the same time only last generation HIV-testing is able to say if someone is infected. This is why all health-care protocols I'm aware of take into account the risk of infection (with the HIV-virus). My dental hygienist for instance uses gloves. 

That's why I don't agree with you about targeting the OP to protect patients. To me it sounds like he has been singled out for having tested POZ. 

Of course I'm not sure as the post is rather short, and I don't know what rules are behind the form he was asked to fill out. That's why I advised checking with a lawyer or labour union first.

 

1 hour ago, senzasella said:

The last thing I would say is that while you may think your wife is the only one who knows your status, there are likely many MANY parties in your Health provider chain and the Government, thanks to your single payer health system,  who do know your status. You shouldn't be surprised that they all talk to each other as well. While I deeply believe in your right to reveal your status when and to whom on your terms, if you've been fired over this already I'm SURE your employer and your union can deduce what your hesitation to fill it out was tied to. The ship has largely sailed on your original privacy concerns if what you say about your employer and union are true.

If this is how things work in your experience, these health-care professionals and it's -system have a rather special and interesting way in working with information that at least in principal is private. Or at least it should be.
Sharing this kind of information in most cases I'm aware of, is strictly regulated so it can only by shared on a need-to-know basis which is mostly the health-care providers of - in this case - @Cuteguy69. If people working in this field or system talk about peoples' diagnoses and identifying them, in my opinion they should be fired on the spot as they aren't capable of working with sensitive information.

 

I'd like to offer another point-of-view to this:
Another reason an employer - including a hospital - might want to ask their personnel about HIV-infection, it's treatment and it's results is that they would want to get rid of people who have a higher risk of getting ill. That's why in general people are protected from this kind of bias and discrimination by the rule that an employer isn't allowed to ask this. (As apparently is the case in Canada).

I could actually empathise with a boss wanting to have a healthy work-force because employees not being able to work, costs money.
But screening them in any way would lead to a situation where gay men in general, HIV-patients, former cancer-patients, younger women (who might want to get pregnant and start a family) and other's who have a (slightly) higher chance of becoming ill (again) would not be able to get a job, while being able to work because right now they are healthy.
That's an unfair situation I really feel nobody wouldn't want. Slightly (but perhaps to even that) exaggerated this would mean only straight males with a clean bill of health have a right to work.

Another downside to this situation is people feeling they should remain in the closet and just not get tested for HIV while they have been at risk.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Guest