Deaf employee fired by typed message as Trump’s mass layoffs hit US well being businesses
As Donald Trump’s group slashed the workforce at well being businesses immediately, staff have been knowledgeable by safety guards that they’d misplaced their jobs.
Lengthy traces shaped in downtown Washington DC, outdoors a hub of well being company workplaces, with many ready hours and never understanding what would occur after they reached the entrance.
Some have been denied entry after they acquired there, earlier than being given a ticket and advised to return residence.
The ticket, seen by Reuters information company, listed numbers for employees to name to retrieve their “important” tools.
“Dozens of individuals have been RIF-ed this manner to date,” one worker stated, referring to the federal government’s euphemism “discount in pressure”.
They included a deaf particular person, who wanted a safety guard to kind on a cellphone the message she had been fired.
“So now it is fallen on the safety guards to inform individuals they’ve misplaced their jobs,” the worker added.
What’s taking place?
In keeping with a number of sources accustomed to the scenario, the Trump administration started mass cuts of 10,000 workers at well being businesses immediately.
These cuts – affecting a number of businesses below the Division of Well being and Human Providers, together with the FDA, CDC and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being – are a part of a wider plan by Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk to shrink the federal government and scale back spending.
Well being secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr described the cuts as important to fixing a bloated forms.
However they’ve included the ouster of prime scientists overseeing public well being, most cancers analysis and vaccine and drug approvals.
That is raised considerations over how the nation will reply to well being emergencies, resembling the continuing measles outbreak.