News, Hospital in weight row after hiring policy BANS obese job applicants. (apply, unemployed)

[Trackwatch]

Never-mind, misread ....

[jasper12]

Most of the old guys in a hospital bed like bigger nurses, with large breasts that brush against them when the female nurses lean over to adjust oxygen or whatever. They like big, strong women with meat on their bones, to lean on when getting out of bed.

So, it is not the patients who have the issues.

[Ringo1]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

A lot of nurses are overweight from shift work/stress. Also, I believe nurses smoke at a higher rate than the general population, as do respiratory therapists. Go figure.
Regarding not wanting to see an obese person take care of you, why not have rules that only really good-looking people can take care of you? That's just absurd. Maybe I'd rather take care of people who don't need a bedpan or who don't have big ugly stretch marks, but hey, that's the gig.
Regarding not hiring obese people for fear of injury, that's tricky. Non-obese people can certainly hurt their backs in moving patients, and so on.

I agree - when I'm in the hospital feeling ill and looking like sh** myself - WHY in the world would I care what my nurse looks like? I don't.

As another poster said, I don't believe it's the patients who have the problem.

Is there still a nurse shortage? Sounds like there might be more if all hospitals take on this hiring practice.

[chef.sunny22]

Many, many nurses are FAT if not obese.

If there is truly a nursing shortage I wonder where the nurses are going to come from?

If a fat person CAN DO THE JOB let them get on with it. Smokers--smoke CLINGS to them.

And WTF do people equate smoking as an addiction that KILLS OTHER PEOPLE AROUND THEM to fat which may kill just the person?
I truly hate this argument.

[e_cuyler]

Should be based on passing a physical, not just a BMI calculation. I could also see maybe some kind of strong encouragement to participate in some kind of diet/exercise plan.

The BMI charts are pretty unforgiving, and people do not actually have to be that heavy to be considered "obese."

[pvande55]

fFve foot four and over 205 would not pass. That is not a large (no pun intended) part of the population. (BMI=m/h**2, m being mass in kilograms and h being height in meters)

[azspeedbullet]

i think the bmi calculations is just a bit BS, not true. While it is possbile to loose weight and slim down, different people have different generics. I am little over 6ft, weight about 250 pounds which some might think im obese but overall im normal and my doc says the same thing, im normal and not obese.Sure i may have a little bit of fat, but i guess its just normal

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

A slightly expanded US article regarding the topic: Victoria Hospital Won't Hire Very Obese Workers — Health Reform and Texas | The Texas Tribune.

[e_cuyler]

If it's a score of 35 then that might actually be somewhat reasonable because that is actually the upper end of obese on the BMI chart. But 30 and above is considered obese, and that would disqualify a lot of people. A man who is six feet and weighs 225 pounds is considered obese on the BMI chart. And I hear they are wanting to adjust them to make them even more strict than they already are.

[sware2cod]

Part of this probably has to do with keeping their health insurance premiums down. They probably don't hire many older folks either, though they (or anyone else) will never admit it.