I am a supervisor at my job. One of my reports has asked for medical leave due having cervical cancer. She has just informed me she will be delaying her surgery for her cervical cancer due to not finding a doctor who will perform the surgery without blood.
She has a fast spreading cancer.
I really want to help her but I need to be careful. What do I say?????
I am going to assume that she's looking for bloodless surgery due to JW beliefs. I'd tell her to call the HQ for a referral to a physician that performs this type of surgery bloodless. They are the ones that insist on this crazy policy, I would think they would have a database somewhere that lists physicians and hospitals that do this. I would also think that if her life depended on it, and the only physician and hospital that could do it is too far to travel by car, that the organization should have a fund set up to assist people like her with airfare and such. I mean, it's SOOOOOOOOOO important to abstain from blood right?
As far as your job being her supervisor, does your company have an employee assistance program? Might want to ask her if she would like a referral to that too. You can also reassure her that she has protections under the Family and Medical Leave Act and you will stand behind her and her rights.
Wish my job had more caring supervisors such as yourself. Good luck!
Recent quote from a doctor I talked to: "Cervical cancer is easily detectable and easily curable if found in time and treated properly. You are at a much higher risk by delaying care than you are at risk by accepting blood. There's no excuse to die of cervical cancer when it's so easy to detect and treat it." (Sorry to any of you who've known someone who died of it. Those are not my words.)
I'm not sure there exists anything you could possibly say would wake her up, though. How about asking a question instead of making a statement, just to get her to think: "Are you sure you want to take such a huge risk?"