hyllis Delaney’s employer was full of sympathy after the data entry clerk learned
her brother would soon die without a kidney transplant. But the good feelings soured
when Delaney was told she would not have her job to return to if she took time off
to donate her kidney.
"You can’t hold this job for me for four weeks while I do
this for my brother?" Delaney recalls asking her supervisor at the Signature Healthcare
Foundation in St. Louis. "I don’t call this ‘working with me.’ "
What happened next is a matter of dispute—one that may be
worked out through a lawsuit Delaney is contemplating. Delaney, who had worked at
the foundation for eight months, says she was fired; the company says she left voluntarily
to donate her kidney.
The confusion and bad feelings that resulted exemplify why
advocates for organ transplantation are turning to employers to help shorten the
wait list of people in need as well as pushing for laws protecting an organ donor’s
job while they are away.
Calling it a creative but relatively inexpensive way for companies
to do a good thing, the American Society of Transplantation is hoping employers
will make it easier for employees to become donors. The organization would like
to see large employers guarantee paid time off for employees who donate an organ.
Advocates say the time off—one week for bone marrow transplants and 30 days for
organ donations—should not cut into vacation or sick leave.
As the national organ donation wait list nears 100,000 people,
the Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, organization is hoping the good will of employers will
increase the rate of living donations, which tend to be more successful than organs
transplanted from cadavers. Last year there were 6,306 live organ transplants in
the U.S., compared with 22,048 organ transplants that came from cadavers, according
to the society. The cost of the transplant is paid by the insurance of the person
receiving the organ.
"For most companies this is not a huge thing, because how
many donors are they going to have in one company?" says transplant society president
Barbara Murphy, a kidney transplant doctor. "It shouldn’t cause undue financial
burden for anyone company."
Gary Smith, a lawyer for Signature Healthcare Foundation,
says the burden is great for small employers, especially those that are nonprofit
organizations. These organizations cannot afford to leave positions open or pay
for employees in their absence. Formed in 2002 by multi-practice St. Louis-based
doctor’s group Signature Health Services Inc., the foundation employs 15 people.
Part of its mission is to provide discounted home health care and rehabilitation
services.
If a law were to protect the jobs of donors, small employers
like the foundation would likely be excluded from it, just as they are excluded
from having to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act.
So far, the only laws that exist pertain to federal employees
and to state employees in about half the U.S., all of whom have the right to take
a paid leave of absence to donate an organ. Federal law gives employees seven days
off for bone marrow transplants and 30 days off for organ donations. Donors say
they would have donated anyway, but the job and financial security the law provides
makes it easier to do so.
Julie Russo worked for the state of Ohio when she was cleared
by doctors to donate a kidney to her dying uncle.
"It’s stressful to think you’re going to have surgery; there’s
a lot to worry about," Russo says. "The fact that I didn’t have to worry about money
helped a lot."
Russo, who now works for a private public relations company
in Columbus, Ohio, was in the hospital for four days, immobilized for another week
and out of work for six weeks. The guaranteed pay from her employer provided financial
stability and convinced her uncle that she wouldn’t suffer any more for the physical
risk she was taking.
While an organ transplant is not a regular occurrence, employers
that have put policies in place say they have benefited from doing so. The American
Society of Transplantation says 41 employers, many in the health care industry,
have paid leave policies for organ donors. Across town from the Signature Healthcare
Foundation, Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis has for several years offered paid
time for organ donors. The decision was a natural fit for the hospital, which has
a transplant center that has more than 600 people on its wait list.
"I think employees all think it’s a good thing and the right
thing to do, whether they ever access it or not," says Gene Ridolfi, an administrator
at the organ transplant center who first broached the question with his senior HR
leaders.
About a quarter of the live kidney and liver donors reported
to the society that donating causes them financial stress. Without her $12-an-hour
job, Delaney, a single mother of a 14-year-old, relied on family to help pay her
bills. For the first time in her life, she says, she has applied for food stamps.
She was unable to afford the premiums to continue her health insurance. (Medical
costs related to her surgery are covered by her brother’s insurance.)
Signature Healthcare Foundation quickly filled Delaney’s position
as a data entry clerk. Smith, the foundation’s lawyer, says Signature will help
Delaney find a position if one is available. But Delaney’s feelings toward her old
employer have changed. Now that she has recovered and is fit to work, she plans
on returning to her former employer. Instead of working, though, she plans on picketing
outside their offices.
Workforce Management Online, July 2008
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