Last February a teaching hospital in the Northeast sacked three pediatric emergency doctors, all in their mid-50s. Last week the three filed suit, alleging the institution and its parent organization acted primarily out of age discrimination.
At the time of the firings, Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey told the physicians they were being let go because COVID-19 had so significantly suppressed business.
In the lawsuit, the trio counters that the pandemic was past peak by February and pediatric ER volumes were rebounding.
Several local and national outlets have picked up the story.
NorthJersey.com reports that the three plaintiffs taught at the affiliate medical school and were the medical center’s only board-certified emergency pediatricians.
An attorney in the law firm they’ve retained suggests the center and its parent outfit, Hackensack Meridian Health, acted in bad faith.
“For Hackensack Meridian to discard [the three] like this after 2020, after they put their lives on the line treating children and adults alike, is unconscionable,” the litigator says.
At the same time, the health system seems to have tried to maintain the status quo regarding ER physician staffing.
“School closures and the cancellation of sports and play activities during the pandemic resulted in a drop in emergency room volume, with fewer families seeking emergency care for the typical injuries of childhood,” reporter Lindy Washburn notes. “Many hospitals responded by reducing the salaries of pediatric emergency room physicians, cutting their hours or switching them from full-time to part-time status.”
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Hackensack did not do that, the lawsuit [says]. In August 2020, [the organization] renewed each of the three physicians’ contracts for three years. In September 2020, it hired two new pediatric emergency room doctors.”
Then too, the lawsuit claims, the three could face a strangled job market, not least because relatively few hospitals have pediatric ERs.
As it’s happened, however, NorthJersey.com has learned that all three plaintiffs started new jobs in September.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.