An outraged medical assistant said she spent nearly $30,000 moving from California to Texas for a new job, only to find out the position was being eliminated when she arrived.
Mojgan Pedram says in a lawsuit that she had a steady job in a California emergency room but decided to accept a position at Texas Children’s Hospital because she has a passion for children.
“Everything was already prepared and I moved,” he told Click 2 Houston.
“I moved here and was planning to, for example, start being financially stable again, but in a second everything was ruined.”
Pedram said she was hired in April and went to the hospital in late May to complete a health check.
Mojgam Pedram is suing Texas Children’s Hospital, alleging she moved from California to work there, only to find out the position was being eliminated.
But Pedram said he then got a call from the hospital, telling him they were putting the job offer on hold.
“I asked them, ‘How long have you known about this and you didn’t tell me?'” she recalled asking the hospital staff.
‘And they said, “Well, this has been going on for two months now,” and I said, “I was offered the job in two months, so you already knew. Why didn’t you even tell me or inform me?”
She said she had already spent about $30,000 moving from California to Texas, but that doesn’t even include “all the expenses of flying, you know, all that, and also having to find a place here in a short period of time.”
His attorney, Jacob Scholl, now says Pedram was a victim of the hospital’s hiring freeze.
“The bottom line is that Texas Children’s Hospital, with all of its bureaucracy, leaves its employees behind,” he told Click 2 Houston.
“They don’t seem to care about the decisions they make and how they affect not only individual employees, but also the community and their families.”
The lawsuit comes as Texas Children’s Hospital announces it will lay off 5 percent of its workforce.
DailyMail.com has contacted Texas Children’s Hospital for comment.
But on Tuesday it announced it would lay off 5 percent of its workforce amid a series of financial challenges.
Linda Aldred, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer He told the Houston Chronicle The hospital has about 20,000 employees at 120 locations, meaning a 5 percent reduction in staff would eliminate about 1,000 jobs.
The cuts will be made across a range of departments, from frontline workers to management, the Chronicle reports.
Some of the employees facing layoffs are recent hires, while others have been with the hospital for more than 20 years, Aldred said.
Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Linda Aldred attributed the layoffs to “historical challenges” within the health care industry.
She attributed the layoffs to “historic challenges” within the health care industry, including rising costs for supplies and labor, and the end of pandemic-era health emergency declarations.
“Hospitals and health care facilities across the country are making this difficult decision. And that’s really where we find ourselves,” he told the Chronicle.
“This has been a very difficult decision for us.”
Aldred said the hospital considered other options and even reduced the size of its executive team by about 10 percent before deciding layoffs were necessary.
Executives will also face pay cuts this fiscal year, he said, after the hospital reported an operating income loss of nearly $200 million during the first six months of the current fiscal year.
Multiple factors, including lower patient volume in Houston and a two-week delay in opening a new campus in Austin, contributed to the loss.