Legal Question in Employment Law in New York

Re: Employee protections

Good question. This deals with 2 conflictiong areas of the law: The right of privacy of the patient and the right of a worker to a safe working environment. While there are no laws I know of regarding ambulette drivers there is a case law regarding doctors and nurses working on patients that have transmitable diseases.

The case law would seem to indicate that there is no responsibility on the part of the patient or the hospital to inform its workers about specific patients. In fact with the newly enacted HIPAA rules, a hospital or healt care worker might be liable for major damages if they informed you of a patient's condition without her permission.

The best advice I can give you is to treat each and every patient as if they are contagious, because likely some are, and take all necessary precautions accordingly.

Should you like to discuss this or any other legal matter, you can call my office to schedule an appointment for a consultation or in the alternative, I can be reached for on-phone low-cost legal consultation at 1-800-275-5336 x0233699.