Lawsuit claim: Mercy Hospital fired surgical technologist after discovering he has HIV

Mercy Hospital officials fired a surgical technologist after discovering he was infected with HIV, according to a lawsuit filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

(Note: The post has been corrected from an earlier version.)

In the petition, Anthony Rabuano said he has had HIV since 2008, but when hospital officials became aware of it after he was inadvertently splashed in the eye with blood during an operation and had to be tested, they immediately demoted him and when he did not accept the demotion, fired him.

Rabuano, who is represented by Timothy A. Ricker of the Hall Ansley law firm in Springfield, is suing the hospital for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.








The details of the case are outlined in the petition:

Plaintiff has worked as a surgical technologist since 2014. Plaintiff started working as a surgical technologist at Mercy in or around June 2019. Plaintiff successfully performed his duties for Defendant through July 27, 2019. 

On or about July 27, 2019, Plaintiff was in the operating room and was splashed in his eye with blood during a procedure.

After the July 27, 2019 incident, Plaintiff was forced to complete paperwork and receive testing for conditions including HIV, hepatitis a, hepatitis b and hepatitis c. Plaintiff’s testing came back as positive for HIV antibodies. Plaintiff was then removed from seeing surgical cases at Mercy.

On or about August 6, 2019, Plaintiff requested to meet with the head of human resources to discuss his position and return to work. 

The human resources representative told Plaintiff that he could no longer work for Mercy and that he was being terminated. Plaintiff responded and told the human resources representative that the was protected under the ADA. 

Plaintiff was sent to a Mercy medical provider regarding his HIV. The medical provider knew that Plaintiff’s viral load was undetectable. The provider told Plaintiff that he did not need to be concerned about his position at Mercy.

Plaintiff was later informed that Mercy would not return him to his surgical technologist position, a position for which Plaintiff was educated and trained, and that Plaintiff would be moved to be a “patient care associate.” 

Plaintiff refused to move to this other position at it would have been a demotion and taken Plaintiff away from doing the work for which he was trained. 

Plaintiff received a letter dated October 1, 2019 indicating that Mercy had considered Plaintiff to have voluntarily resigned because he had refused to accept the patient care associate position. 

Rapuano is asking to be reinstated to his position and to be paid damages, punitive damages and attorney and witness fees.