Trans woman denied hormones by CVS pharmacist
- by Freda Gordon
- in Medicine
- — Jul 24, 2018
CVS would not clarify whether the pharmacist was sacked, telling HuffPost that it does not comment on employment decisions.
Hilde Hall, a transgender woman, says a CVS pharmacist refused to fill her hormone medication and loudly questioned her in front of other customers. She said she chose the medication instead of undergoing an invasive medical procedure.
"He did not give me a clear reason for the refusal", Hall said in the complaint.
Additionally, Hall also wrote that she is one of the lucky ones, explaining that, unlike some other transgender individuals, she has a great support system and left the encounter physically unscathed.in terms of her support system and how that encounter might have played out for someone else. "I was carrying my first prescriptions for hormone therapy", she writes on the ACLU's website.
According to CNN, CVS apologized for the incident: "CVS Health extends its honest apologies to Ms. Hall for her experience at our pharmacy in Fountain Hills, Arizona last spring", the company said. But after her story hit the media with a little help from the ACLU, the pharmacy chain is finally apologizing. The company said the employee had been fired, but did not disclose if it happened immediately or after media reports on the incident.
A CVS spokesperson, Michael J. DeAngelis, said in a statement Friday that the pharmacist's conduct "does not reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care".
CVS apologized to Hall for the delay, saying in its statement that no one had previously contacted her due to "an unintentional oversight".
Iran’s Khamenei: ‘Negotiations with U.S. useless’
On Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the USA does not abide by agreements. He assured them that the Trump administration shared their dreams for the people of Iran .
Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project, said given the current political climate, it's critical that CVS ensures its customers are not harassed in its pharmacies. The woman's doctor had told her the pregnancy was unviable, and another Walgreens filled her prescription.
The pharmacist refused to fill one of the subscriptions, Hall wrote.
However, when went to a CVS in her hometown of Fountain Hills, Arizona, to fill the script, she was shocked by what came next. In a June statement, Walgreens said pharmacists are allowed to not fill a prescription based on moral objections but they must give it to another pharmacist to fill. She said she felt like the CVS pharmacist was "trying to out me as transgender in front of strangers".
Hall said the pharmacist wouldn't return the prescription note.
When her doctor's office called the store on her behalf, the pharmacist still declined to fill the order.
Employees are required, however, to have another pharmacist or manager handle the prescription so that the patient's needs are met "in a timely manner". "Is there a company policy that he refused to follow?" said Gibson.
An example of sex discrimination, according to an Obama administration training guide issued in 2016, would be a pharmacist not providing a flu vaccine to a woman and questioning her on her non-gender-conforming appearance.
