re: Lawyers of the OT, question about current situation

This thread clearly didn’t go the way you thought it would.

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She requested two weeks off for quarantine and was denied and told to return or be fired. There is another therapist who took leave when all the started because she has a infant. They called her yesterday and said she needed to go work at another facility that has 30 plus cases. She said no and they fired her this morning.

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Fired for cause or laid off? My company has customer-facing field services employees. They can’t work from home. If there is nowhere to send them, they have been allowed to use PTO (until it runs out) and eventually furloughed. If we do have somewhere to send them, they have two choices: return to work, or be laid off. It’s a business. If someone makes the decision that going to work is not worth the risk, that’s fine. But ultimately they are deciding not to go to work.

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So the wife is an OT and works at a Nursing home. They got there first confirmed case over the weekend of Covid. She treated that individual last Tues for therapy.

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So, a couple of facts to think about here. 1) If one patient tested positive, it’s likely that other patients have already contracted the virus. This is a nursing home patient. Where do you think they were exposed in the first place? 2) We are way past the “containment” stage with this virus.

In light of those facts, what would you have the nursing home do? Quarantine every staff member who comes in contact with a COVID patient? What are they going to do with the patient, lock them in a padded room for 4 weeks? What happens when there is inevitably a second and a third confirmed case? If they quarantined all the staff who came into contact with these patients, they would turn into a hospice instead of a nursing home.

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The concern is that if she gets sick it keeps me from working as well which is 75% of our income.

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So you’re worried that she’s already been exposed, and you think that if she stays home it will somehow keep you from being exposed? Either she has the virus or she doesn’t. If she already has it, her returning to work has no impact on whether or not you catch it. If she doesn’t have the virus, her returning to work is not going to affect the other patients.

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Why risk it? Nothing she does is life critical where it cant wait until she is tested or finished quarantine.

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Clearly the nursing home thinks it is critical, or “essential” since that’s the word being thrown around nowadays. Again, you are adults capable of making your own decisions. Her job is either worth the perceived risk or it isn’t. But that’s your choice to make.