Kidney donor sacked for taking too much time off work
By IANSTuesday, January 25, 2011
Venice, Jan 25 (IANS/AKI) A nursing home in the northern city of Venice sacked a 50-year-old woman carer for “taking too much time off” after she had donated one of her kidneys to save her sick brother, a media report said.
The woman, Francesca Scarpa received a phone-call from her employer telling her that her contract would not be renewed because she had been off work for five weeks after the operation to remove her kidney, local newspaper Il Gazzettino reported Monday.
“They didn’t renew my contract and just phoned to say they no longer needed me as I’d taken too much time off, although I’d worked there for over a year,” Scarpa said.
“If my younger colleagues were to get pregnant, the same thing would happen to them,” she added.
Scarpa worked at the nursing home on short-term three-months contracts issued by an unnamed employment agency.
Her most recent contract expired Dec 31. Although doctors had told Scarpa not to return to work for approximately eight weeks, Jan 3 she told her employers she was prepared to return sooner but could not lift heavy objects.
She had one of her kidneys removed Nov 26 as her brother was in urgent need of the transplant.
–IANS/AKI
