Relief for diabetic customers: Check. Diabetic employees? Not so much.

In a press release distributed this morning, Wal-Mart has announced that it is “once again driving unnecessary health care costs out of the system and passing the savings along to its customers through the pharmacy aisles.”

How is it doing it this time? By offering exclusive-to-Wal-Mart diabetes management products for $9 each at all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide. That, might I say, is quite excellent actually. I myself don’t have - and don’t have immediate family members who have - diabetes. But I’ve known and worked with people who do, and one thing an individual with diabetes shouldn’t have to worry about is the cost of testing and treatment supplies, which I could imagine can get quite expensive.

No, the problem with this story isn’t in what Wal-Mart is announcing. It is, instead, the way in which Wal-Mart has treated its own employees who have diabetes. Helping the masses might seem a little nicer if the company treated its own diabetic employees with slightly more compassion and understanding.

The gold standard of what I’m talking about is the story of Stephen Orr. Orr worked as a pharmacist at a Nebraska Wal-Mart. Orr has Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into the energy needed for daily life. As a result, Orr must administer insulin to himself several times each day. For a while, management allowed him to, you know, do the things he needed to do over the course of a day to stay alive...like actually take a lunch break. Eventually though, business and customer traffic forced Wal-Mart - instead of hiring an additional pharmacist - to inform Orr he could no longer take a break to eat and rest. In fact, he was told to eat behind the pharmacy counter if and when store traffic slowed. If you can’t guess what happened, I’ll tell you - Orr’s blood glucose levels dropped severely on multiple occasions, causing him to experience symptoms of hypoglycemia, which can include dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, difficulty speaking, and feeling anxious or weak. Wal-Mart still refused to accommodate him, and his manager eventually fired him, explicitly telling him it was because of his diabetes.

If Orr’s story doesn’t sound familiar, its still worth checking out. Last year he testified before the U.S. Senate, urging them to take up the cause of expanding the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") to include those with diabetes. Stories like his are what helped drive the House of Representatives to push legislation amending the ADA to include individuals who may not currently be included under the definition of disability, such as those with diabetes, cancer, or cerebral palsy. Not surprisingly, big business and the Wal-Mart-backed U.S. Chamber of Commerce vehemently fought the broadening of the ADA’s coverage, resulting in the death of the 2007 bill, and the pushing of a much watered-down compromise bill here in 2008.

Similar cases have popped up, with former employees filing charges in federal court that Wal-Mart failed to accommodate their diabetes.

Renee Wheeler was hired as an Optician at a Wal-Mart Vision Center in Missouri. Wheeler has Type I diabetes and wears an insulin pump to regulate her condition. In 1998, Wheeler’s doctor gave her strict restrictions which required a set schedule for her meal times. Without this schedule Wheeler’s blood sugar would become dangerously low and could potentially cause seizures.

In October 2004, Wheeler had to take 12 weeks of medical leave during her pregnancy with her second child. Between December of 2004 and January 14, 2005, Wheeler contacted her Vision Center supervisor and Wal-Mart Human Resources several times to see if her schedule could again be regularly set as a reasonable accommodation for her disability. They informed her that even though she had a doctor’s note, it ‘meant nothing.’ Wheeler made several requests for her scheduling needs to be accommodated and even requested to move to a position which would allow for the accommodation, to no avail. Wheeler’s schedule was not set and fluctuated weekly. As a result of the fluctuating schedule and eating times, in January 2005 Wheeler’s blood sugar dropped and she suffered a seizure at work.

Wheeler v. Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P.

McElroy v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Hammergren v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, September 16, 2008