By Joe Pinchot
SHARON — Sharon Regional Health System officially denied allegations of race and age bias and retaliation lodged by an ex-employee in a federal lawsuit.
The hospital previously denied the allegations in a statement, but recently filed its answer to Antonia Gibson’s suit.
Ms. Gibson, who was born in 1963, of 792 Baldwin Ave., Sharon, was hired May 10, 1999, as a mental health worker, she said in the suit filed May 18. She said she “consistently received favorable ratings in her annual performance evaluations.”
The hospital responded that Ms. Gibson was “at best a marginal employee,” who had “frequent disciplinary violations and “frequently interacted inappropriately with patients and co-workers.”
During a shift in September, a coworker from another floor called Ms. Gibson and asked her to bring a wheelchair to her so she could transport a patient, Ms. Gibson said in the suit filed by Neal A. Sanders and Dirk D. Beuth, Butler.
Ms. Gibson, who is black, said she and a nurse were the only staff members on their floor, and company policy prohibits her from leaving the floor while the nurse is distributing medication.
The hospital responded that Ms. Gibson “answered the telephone, stated to the worker that she was busy and thereafter did nothing in response to the worker’s emergency request.”
Ms. Gibson said the co-worker told her the chair was not needed for an emergency.
Ms. Gibson was informed Oct. 6 that she was being fired for failing to provide aid to a coworker in a potentially critical situation, she said. The hospital denied this statement because Ms. Gibson “did not fully and/or completely describe the events that occurred.”
She said other, younger employees of different races were treated more favorably, and she was replaced by a substantially younger, white person, statements the hospital denied in the answer filed by William James Rogers of Thomson, Rhodes and Cowie, Pittsburgh.
The hospital said Ms. Gibson’s age and race were not factors in employment decisions, that her termination was for “valid disciplinary reasons,” and that it did not retaliate against her after she filed a discrimination charge in early 2008 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in response to a suspension.
