HIV+ Greensboro man sues doctor; NC bigotry is back
by Matt | May 24th, 2006 |Alright folks… Greensboro has hit the national news… at least the national gay media. Oh yeah… we are on the AP wire too. And guess what… we are connected with bigotry and discrimination and prejudice again.
Ya’ll come on… when are we going to learn. North Carolina already has a bad enough reputation. Now we have folks doing nothing but continuing to make us all look like a bunch of bigoted and prejudiced morons with nothing better to do than discriminate against others and make their lives miserable.
Can we get a life maybe? Just a little bit at least? Please? I beg.
According to an Associated Press article, as well as a story which was aired on Fox 8 (and other stations I’m sure), an HIV+ Greensboro man has sued his doctor for releasing confidential medical records about his HIV status to his employer.
According to the article:
An HIV-positive man has sued his Charlotte doctor, saying he was denied a promotion after the doctor faxed confidential medical records to his office.
His boss found the report, and he experienced discrimination at work, said the man, identified only as John Doe in the lawsuit filed in Guilford County Superior Court earlier this month. It also caused him severe anxiety and depression, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $10,000.
Court records do not disclose where Doe worked or lived, and he has asked the courts to allow him to keep his identity secret while his lawsuit is active.
Under state law, physicians, hospitals and other medical providers must report the names of HIV/AIDS patients to their local health departments, which send the information to the state Division of Public Health for tracking.
I’m really curious as to whether or not this man is gay. If he is gay and his doctor knew that, I wonder how much that factor might (please notice the word “might”) have figured into the doctor’s actions. On average, North Carolinians are, without a doubt, a little on the homophobic and heterosexist (read: bigoted and prejudiced) side, so a part of me wonders if part of the doctors actions are based on this. Of course, all of this guess work depends solely on whether or not the HIV+ man is gay and, well, I don’t know that.
But… yeah… really. I guess we’ll keep looking like a bunch of ignorant, bigoted rednecks. I mean… what do we have to lose? The rest of the country already thinks we are stupid and bigoted.
Will it ever end?
One Response to “HIV+ Greensboro man sues doctor; NC bigotry is back”
Cases like this often go either way. The article did not demonstrate what the doctors intent was…
Obviously, the doctor may have had cruel intentions.
Or, someone in the doctors office (an assistant/secretary) just flat out screwed up.
During my first year of law school, I read dozens of cases where the doctor acted negligently but not intentionally. Negligence is not an Intentional Tort (I assume this guys claim is Negligent Infliction of Emotion Distress or something along those lines which would assume that the Doctor did not act with the intent of causing the guy harm.).
Or maybe its not a negligence-only claim?
Either way, the guy should be able to recover for damages.
By Big Daddy Weave on May 25, 2006