The complainant is a nurse and worked for the respondent as a nurse on ambulance services. She submitted that on 30 November 2007 she informed the respondent she was pregnant. As no member of senior management was available she told the acting Manager. The complainant submitted there were a number of occasions when her condition was not taken into account by the respondent, including:
- on 4 December 2007 she was asked to escort an excessively obese lady from Monaghan Hospital to the Mater Hospital who had to be manually transferred to the ambulance,
- on 18 January 2008 she was requested to transfer a lady from Cavan General to Monaghan General Hospital who had diarrhoea and vomiting,
- on 8 February 2008 the complainant started work at 8.30am and had delivered a patient from Cavan General Hospital to Drogheda and was going for a break when she got a call from Mr A that a patient had to be transferred from Monaghan to Castleross Nursing Home. The complainant said she needed some lunch and the manager roared at her that the transfer had to be done immediately.
- she said she was docked pay for ante-natal appointments
- she was threatened with redundancy
- she had her working hours reduced
- she was not given a copy of the risk assessment
The respondent denied most of the above and denied that the complainant ever requested a copy of her risk assessment or medical reports.
The EO concluded that the respondent had failed to carry out a risk assessment after she informed them of her pregnancy and failed to give the complainant time off for ante-natal care appointments. This constitutes discrimination on the gender ground. He awarded €5,000.
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