Pain Blog
If we feel pain we need to go to doctor?

I work a very physically demanding job in which I have to lift and transfer patients. I perform CT scans, which I can obviously do without lifting but at my hospital we don’t have orderlies or anything to help us lift. When I became pregnant my OB put me on a 50 lb lifting, pushing, and pulling limit. I turned in my disability paperwork, and I haven’t been lifting for the last two months while I waited to hear from the disability office. My coworkers have mostly been resentful and have not been understanding about having to help me out. A few have been nice, but most have made me feel like such a burden. The disability office finally called me and said they don’t consider pregnancy a disability and don’t accomodate. My department claims that we never lift more than 50 pounds anyway, which is an absolute lie. There are usually just two or maybe three of us to move a patient, and most of our patients are well over 200 pounds and on backboards. My boss said I have to start lifting, and just get help if I think they are heavier than I can lift. The problem is, its very busy and we are shortstaffed and its impossible to find people that aren’t already really busy themselves. Tonight was my first night trying to move patients and push stretchers. I have done my best, but my back is just killing me and I have shooting pains down my legs. I am crying as I write this and it hurts so bad. I don’t know what to do. If I have to go on disability its only 50% pay. Are they allowed to force me to lift even though my doctor filled out forms stating that I can’t lift over 50 pounds?

By: laila r