Job position to switch to fully-remote under ADA

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I am currently goung through radiation therapy and found out we are expected to return to the office in January 2022. I get very fatigued and the treatments my oncologist wants to put me on after the rads are done would lower my immune system, lower white cell count, etc. My job is in healthcare IT and have been working from home since the pandemic began. Would asking for my position to be switched to a permanent WFH type be considered a reasonable accomodation under ADA guidelines? Has anyone been sucessful in getting this type of accomodation approved?

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  • gb2115
    gb2115 Member Posts: 1,894
    edited December 2021

    I wish you the best. I work in a patient-facing healthcare job with the ongoing possibility of job covid/other illness exposure, and my company wouldn't let me work from home, even with low white counts during chemo. Their accommodation was to let my colleagues do the actual face to face while I call certain patients from my office, but I'm still in the (small) building and around staff who are in direct contact.

    I'm upset with my company and it's been suggested to me to at least discuss it with a lawyer. I don't know if I have it in me to deal with that. My oncologist was encouraging me to work the entire time since "everyone is masked" so I don't know that she would have my back for any legal action.


  • exbrnxgrl
    exbrnxgrl Member Posts: 12,424
    edited December 2021

    I am not a lawyer and this shouldn’t be considered legal advice. I am a recently retired public school teacher. When our schools gradually moved to in person instruction, teachers who still felt uncomfortable or who had medical reasons for not returning were offered the chance to continue teaching remotely to those students whose families did not want them to attend in person. For this school year, when only in person instruction was planned, teachers who had doctor verified medical reasons to be out were offered an unpaid leave of absence, though they could use sick days or disability as applicable as would have been the case pre-pandemic. Families were still offered the option of remote learning but an outside company was hired to provide remote instruction, not district teachers. FYI, very few families continued with remote learning (just 2 from my former school!). My point is that now that we’re back to “normal” school, we are also back to the normal rules and regs that cover absences. Just feeling uncomfortable is not a reason for employers to continue to allow folks to work from home. ADA requires reasonable accommodations for those who are sick or disabled, but at the very least, your doctor would probably need to write a note stating that your health makes it impossible for you to work in person. At a certain point during the pandemic many employers made major accommodations to keep employees safe and healthy however they seem to be moving back to in person work for many of their employees. Personally, I don’t think your situation is an ADA violation but I could be wrong.

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