Fired for speaking a single word of another language?
Things that make you go... o_0 WTF?

I've just finished reading today's "dose of stupidity" in which a hospital in Baltimore City fired several nurses and a secretary for speaking their native language of Tagalog.

As a medical student I could understand this for several reasons, but none of those reasons apply here. Were the nurses using their native tongue during a medical procedure, in which case they could have confused other medical staff? No. Were they discussing with outside individuals in a manner that resembled the breaking of doctor-patient confidentiality? No. Were they, for that matter, acting in any sort of suspicious or obstructive manner? No.

The Nurses were eating lunch in the break room with one another, having a conversation and otherwise being human. The Secretary used a single word (an honorific with the equivalent in English being "sir") to refer to a Filipino doctor.

So what, then, is the problem?

Well, quite frankly, from my point of view nothing. However, the hospital they work for has apparently recently erected a rule in which it states a zero tolerance policy for foreign language speaking by ER staff to prevent confusion during medical emergencies. This may seem like a good thing, until such idiocy as this begins to happen.

It is true that these individuals are staff in the ER and that they were speaking a foreign language? Yes, however were they doing so while in the ER or in reference to medical procedures? No. They were simply talking to other individuals who easily understood what they meant and were, in the process, not risking a single patients safety or well-being.

This is, quite obviously, not about the patients well being, but instead about someone with a lot of power in the hospital (perhaps many someones) who simply do not like immigrant-folk attempting to make a decent living in America. It very easily reminds me of an old job I used to have where one of my co-workers was a complete imbecile by choice (one of my biggest pet-peeves is when people have all the opportunity to gain knowledge but bypass it for some ignorant reason). At one point during the work day I used a word not frequently used in American English but very common in British English to which he responded that I should "Talk American because I'm in America" and I responded by "I was speaking English, considering there is no language called American" and his response was "This is America, we speak American!"

Here we have an example from my past about how people, in their own ignorance, can't seem to grasp the idea that a person can speak several languages. Yes, these individuals were, at the time, speaking Tagalog, however that does not mean they are not fluent in English (in fact most immigrants who learn English know how to speak, read, and write better than native born Americans). It is possible to be fluent in several languages and, therefore, any individual speaking a different tongue during their free time ought to just be left as they are. Even my own mother, who I love dearly, becomes annoyed with people speaking foreign languages in public places because "You live here, learn English" and I need to constantly remind her (to no avail) that they most likely know English very well, they just choose not to speak it when grocery shopping/at the mall/on the street/in the next car/etc.

According to the report, the women fired for speaking Tagalog are now filing a legal suit against the hospital and I hope in the name of all things holy that they win. If they had been speaking in the ER during a procedure or even just under medical pretext I could understand the problem, however they were simply going about their day, and no one should be fired for saying hello to the doctor walking by your desk.

This is Tyrror from TehPainfulTruth and sometimes...the truth hurts...