CVS Apologizes After Pharmacist Harasses Trans Customer
By Sara Boboltz
07/20/2018 04:53 pm ET
huffingtonpost.com
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cvs-pharmacist-refuses-transgender-womans-prescription-fired_us_5b522cfde4b0b15aba8e9c8b
Hilde Hall felt "elated" to finally start hormone treatment after a trip to her doctor in April ― until an Arizona pharmacist refused to fill one of her prescriptions at CVS.
Without giving a clear reason, the man "just kept asking, loudly and in front of other CVS staff and customers, why I was given the prescriptions," Hall wrote in an essay on the American Civil Liberties Union's website.
Hall said she nearly started crying.
On Friday, one day after Hall shared her story publicly, CVS announced that the pharmacist who allegedly harassed her is no longer employed with the company. CVS would not clarify whether the pharmacist was fired, telling HuffPost that it does not comment on employment decisions.
In an apology statement, CVS said the man's conduct "violated company policies and does not reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care." . . .
Good. Made an example of this person.
Agreed that the reaction by CVS was good.
How horrible for the poor person trying to fill a prescription. I was mildly nervous the first time I went to get my HRT meds at CVS, but wasn't seriously concerned about something like this happening.
I had heard about the incident yesterday but the apology part only today.
As a trans woman, a pharmacist and a CVS employee I was quite relieved to see that they had apologized.
Officially and policy wise, CVS is a trans friendly employer. When I came out last year, I did it by leaving a copy of the company's Gender Transition Guidelines for Colleagues on my managers desk. Per the Guidelines, my manager took it from there and told everyone else.
As I understand it, by Arizona law, the pharmacist did not have to fill the prescription but if he refuses he has to let someone else. From the report he also violated the HIPAA privacy law.
Unfortunately good policies can only go so far and you can't make everyone behave. Its very nice to see that the company stands behind theirs.
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This kind of thing is gonna get worse if a certain group has success pushing these 'religious freedom' bills to basically rename what we used to call discrimination. Maybe they will push for cis water fountains and trans water fountains and we can revisit the 60's. Sad.
I live in this town. I don't know Hilde as there are no local to the town orgs where we'd cross paths, but it surprises me from the standpoint of knowing CVS' policies and that there was a complaint that went nowhere. What doesn't surprise me is that the pharmacist exists here in AZ. On the local FB page, support for Hilde has been pretty much unanimous.
The other thing is there are situations where companies have supportive policies, but local branches in backward ass places sometimes do differently, like the suit against Amazon in Kentucky. What shocks me is that the company backs local management.
Quote from: TonyaW on July 20, 2018, 09:52:32 PM
I had heard about the incident yesterday but the apology part only today.
As a trans woman, a pharmacist and a CVS employee I was quite relieved to see that they had apologized.
Officially and policy wise, CVS is a trans friendly employer. When I came out last year, I did it by leaving a copy of the company's Gender Transition Guidelines for Colleagues on my managers desk. Per the Guidelines, my manager took it from there and told everyone else.
As I understand it, by Arizona law, the pharmacist did not have to fill the prescription but if he refuses he has to let someone else. From the report he also violated the HIPAA privacy law.
Unfortunately good policies can only go so far and you can't make everyone behave. Its very nice to see that the company stands behind theirs.
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Did you have to ask for the guidelines or are they in the staff manual?
so glad it didnt turn into another walgreens >-bleeped-< show... but still this is a trend that has to stop. Someday soon it will be someones cancer medicine or something like that. I hope that employee did get fired and is long gone
Quote from: Gertrude on July 20, 2018, 11:15:22 PM
Did you have to ask for the guidelines or are they in the staff manual?
It's on our HR website. There is a managers version also that my manager had when we met to talk about it. There are also a couple of information courses in the employee learning section that could be assigned if someone has an issue. As far as I know, no one I work with has taken them. I've had no issues with anyone.
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Another Pharmacist here.
Pharmacists have an obligation to refuse to fill a prescription that is not for a legitimate medical purpose. The only time I invoked this is when we had a free for all on controlled drugs here in Florida a few years ago. Things have now calmed down a bit and the worst offending prescribers are no longer prescribing.
Transition is a legitimate medical procedure and the Pharmacist should have filled that prescription after he was sure there was no error in writing the prescription. The HIPAA laws are very important here. The Pharmacist may be subject to legal discipline for his actions.
Here's a bit more on the story
https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/transgender-rights/my-pharmacist-humiliated-me-when-he-refused-fill-my-hormone
The pharmacist refused to give the prescription back and the prescribing doctor called the pharmacist and was still refused, with no reason given.
Quote from: AnonyMs on July 22, 2018, 02:11:00 AM
Here's a bit more on the story
https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/transgender-rights/my-pharmacist-humiliated-me-when-he-refused-fill-my-hormone
The pharmacist refused to give the prescription back and the prescribing doctor called the pharmacist and was still refused, with no reason given.
The pharmacist resigned too.
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Quote from: TonyaW on July 21, 2018, 05:56:51 AM
It's on our HR website. There is a managers version also that my manager had when we met to talk about it. There are also a couple of information courses in the employee learning section that could be assigned if someone has an issue. As far as I know, no one I work with has taken them. I've had no issues with anyone.
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Not on ours. I work for a large university and trying to find out information is like a dan brown novel. I even emailed HR and no reply. I had to contact the EEO office and they told HR to respond. The culture where I work is such that most people just want to do tasks and not take responsibility and the ones that do aren't the ones that should at least half the time. The other thing is that they don't like blanket policies. Things are done differently in different departments. Profs will rail about white and male privilege, but they have no problems pulling privilege when it comes to conforming to certain policies and will threaten walking away with their grants if they have to conform and its over nonsense. They'd never make it in the private sector. Anyway, The only thing they cover is hrt and there's no formal policy about transition. There is for students and they can get full trans coverage through healthcare sold through the school, but because employees are state workers, we are bound by whatever all state workers get and it's a red state. The school does have protections for lgbt as does the town we're in, but the state has no trans protections. Thing is, we have 23k employees at the school. That would translate to about 230 trans employees. That's significant enough to have formal policies. The student trans coordinator(staff) left because of the resistance to change. She went to bat with HR about employee policies with this, but got nowhere. I wonder if the head of HR is conservative...anyway, good for you that you work in such an enlightened company.
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Found it a bit curious that a "learning" course that popped up for us this week was titled "Privacy".
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I am really glad that is addressed so well. My Medicare part D is Silver Script (through CVS.)
Quote from: TonyaW on August 04, 2018, 08:36:55 AM
Found it a bit curious that a "learning" course that popped up for us this week was titled "Privacy".
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Of course it's related.
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Quote from: Gertrude on August 05, 2018, 07:58:54 AM
Of course it's related.
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It is stuff we are supposed to do every year. I did look through my past courses and did not find one with that same title and nothing similar from about a year ago so I think it's related.
No mention of the incident in the weekly intranet news letter we get. There was a big "please don't do this" article from the CEO regarding the incident involving a black woman and a coupon that happened about the same time.
I was hoping to see something similar regarding this incident. Had there not been an apology issued, I was preparing myself to ask about it.
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That has to be so heartbreaking to finally start HRT only to have some bigot refuse to give them the medication. It's good that they were fired but that doesn't take away the emotional pain of this experience I'm sure.
This kind of stuff seems especially silly considering a lot of other drugs have serious or even deadly potential side effects, yet those were perfectly okay to be handing out all day long? But apparently when there's trans person involved the pharmacist suddenly thinks they know better than the doctor.
Not as bad but I had an incident the last time I was at the pharmacy. I live in Ontario and have gotten my prescription from a Shopper's Drug Mart for the last 3 years. It's the largest pharmacy chain in Canada, I think. Anyway the last time I was in the owner/pharmacist served me. I had never dealt with him before it was usually a tech or another pharmacist. When he retrieved my prescription he gave me the oddest look and then loudly said "estradiol this can't be right". Everyone in the back of the pharmacy could easily hear him.
I'm not out and I'm glad nobody I knew was there considering it's just blocks from where I live but I really didn't appreciate the broadcast. I angrily told him "Yes this is my prescription". I paid and gave him a very nasty look.
I should have probably complained to the company. God I was angry.
Take care,
Paige :)
Sorry to hear that @Paige I understand why you'd be upset. That's totally not cool loudly telling everyone what prescription you are getting, regardless of what it is. If it makes you feel any better I doubt most people have any idea what those drugs are. Most don't even know the name of the drugs they themselves are on!
Quote from: Kati P on August 23, 2018, 07:38:00 PM
Sorry to hear that @Paige I understand why you'd be upset. That's totally not cool loudly telling everyone what prescription you are getting, regardless of what it is. If it makes you feel any better I doubt most people have any idea what those drugs are. Most don't even know the name of the drugs they themselves are on!
Thanks Kati for the support.
Paige :)