Just doing my part to make sure this story is spread around.
Basically a woman was raped at the Gasparilla Festival, reported the rape, was subsequently arrested for not paying restitution on something four years earlier (she thought it had been taken care of & didn’t know there was a warrant), was denied emergency contraception by the jail nurse on a religious basis (seriously you religion nuts, get out of these jobs so people can get their medication from someone who puts patients’ health care needs before their spiritual beliefs), never got victim’s counseling, was jailed for two days (and therefore didn’t have the opportunity to get Plan B from any other source) and according to her lawyer was never questioned in those two days about the rape.
Sounds like a nightmare (and a hell of a lawsuit) to me.
11 Comments
January 30, 2007 at 1:52 pm
[...] Eden posted about an interesting…albeit distrubing…story in the news. [...]
January 30, 2007 at 2:02 pm
“seriously you religion nuts, get out of these jobs so people can get their medication from someone who puts patients’ health care needs before their spiritual beliefs”
Same thing with pharmacists. If you can’t dispense legal medicines as described, go find a job that you are willing to do.
January 30, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Yes. I don’t think some yahoo working at a Wal-Mart pharmacy has the right to tell me that I shouldn’t be allowed access to Plan B just b/c he looked behind the sofa and found Jesus.
It’s your job. Do it. If you want to preach and spread The Word, become a missionary.
January 30, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Canada, guys. It’s just like America, without the crazy.
January 30, 2007 at 3:18 pm
That whole thing is seriously fucked up from beginning to end. I hope she gets a huge settlement. And religious wackos…ugh.
January 30, 2007 at 9:34 pm
That poor girl. I hope she gives them hell over this. Outrageous.
January 31, 2007 at 12:44 am
Holy shit. Welcome to the third fucking world.
January 31, 2007 at 8:44 am
This was a pretty horrible story on a whole bunch of levels.
In the interest of fairness, however, it’s unclear the denial was for religious reasons. From the CNN version of the story:
Tampa attorney Jennifer D’Angelo, who represents the jail worker, said Tuesday that her client is prohibited from giving inmates any medication without specific orders. The worker insists she never discussed religion with the woman who reported being raped.
“She was mortified at what was being reported in the press,” said D’Angelo, who declined to identify the worker. “She’s frightened for her job and she’s frightened about community backlash about these allegations.”
The employee, who has worked for a jail health care contractor for about six months, was placed on administrative leave, D’Angelo said.
January 31, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Gee, I wonder if the nurse would have been a little more diligent about getting “specific orders” if the inmate had been a diabetic and needed insulin?
January 31, 2007 at 8:33 pm
She would have given a cookie and orange juice. Maybe she gave this victim a Tic Tac.
February 2, 2007 at 8:48 am
I wondered that too, Emma, about what she’d have done for a diabetic patient.
But I’m just as against Trial By Journalism as I am against people who won’t do their jobs for whatever reason.
And the job being against your religion thing is getting strange–it’s not just the Christian fundies, either. In Chicago there are Muslim taxi drivers refusing to carry any fares who have alcoholic bottles on them. (I guess that would be visible bottles? Not sure how they’d know otherwise.)
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