I am writing this on behalf of a friend of mine who is an LPN at a privately funded home health agency and I hope I am in the write forum for this. It seems more like a venting thing than anything else. Forgive me if I'm wrong!

Anyway, it seems like my friend is being mistreated by her agency and given her long shifts and then having to go home and take care of her kids, I am trying to save her some time by researching her issues online for her.

So here's the issue:
She's an excellent nurse. She knows her job, knows what she needs to do and how to do it. She was reprimanded by her agency recently because the parents of the teenage boy to whom she was assigned did not want a white nurse working with their son. She has been doing a good job with the boy, no complaints in terms of her professional duties. But because the parents are prejudice, she was removed from the home AND reprimanded by her agency with a formal written warning. Essentially, she was written up because she had to be replaced in that home---but not because of her own incompetence but because of the family's discriminatory behavior.

In addition to this reprimand, she was recently written up a second time because she requested to be off one weekend. She didn't take off and she followed the agency's policy of giving more than a 12 hour notice. She told me that she was written up because it was her responsibility to find a replacement nurse for her shift prior to taking off. I understand the policy and can agree with it to some extent (though I think management is in a better position to find a replacement person since they know who their employees are); however, to write someone up simply because they inquire about being off is a bit much. I could see if she asked, then took off without having a replacement but that is not the case.

Does she have any rights, especially in regard to the first reprimand? With that one, it doesn't seem fair that a company can penalize a person because a patient's family wants to be racist. She's now had two strikes against her. One more and she's gone.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance!