Doctor fired for refusing COVID vaccines sues Tufts Medical Center.

A former emergency room doctor fired by Tufts Medical Center in Boston for refusing — on religious grounds — to comply with the medical center’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate is suing Tufts for $6 million.
In a lawsuit filed on October 8, Dr. Theresa Gabana — who worked at Tufts for 29 years before being fired on December 5, 2021 — claimed that she was wrongfully terminated and that her request for a religious exemption should not have been denied.
“In essence, Dr. Gabana was given a ‘Hobson’s choice’ when she was forced to ‘choose between her sincere Christian religious belief and her family’s livelihood,’” according to the complaint.
When Gabana chose to maintain her religious belief and applied for an exemption, “the hospital summarily denied her request and wrongfully claimed undue hardship,” Richard Chambers Jr., one of the lawyers representing Gabana, told The Defender.
The lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages and $1 million in punitive damages.
Tufts imposed vaccine mandate after Massachusetts lifted the emergency order
According to The Boston Globe, “most health care workers in Massachusetts were not required by state law to be vaccinated for COVID-19” at the time of Gabana’s firing. Instead, hospitals developed their own policies.
In her complaint, Gabana claims that these hospital-specific policies were “unconstitutional,” in part because Tufts implemented its vaccine mandate after Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ended the state’s COVID-19 state of emergency on June 15, 2021.
According to the lawsuit, Tufts announced its vaccine mandate on June 24, 2021. The policy took effect on August 10, 2021. The deadline for employees to get the vaccine or obtain a religious or medical exemption was October 18, 2021.
Gabana noted that the hospital allowed her to treat emergency room patients before vaccines were available, and that accommodations could have been made, such as allowing her to wear a mask. But Tufts “summarily denied” Gabana “any accommodation,” according to the lawsuit.
On September 3, 2021, Gabana submitted her request for a religious exemption to Tufts, raising concerns that the COVID-19 vaccines were “developed with or tested on aborted fetal cells,” in conflict with her religious beliefs.
Tufts denied Gabana’s request and a subsequent appeal and fired her on December 5, 2021. Gabana claims that Tufts discriminated against her sincere religious belief, but also fired her because they did not want to pay her the pension benefits she would soon have qualified for.
Gabana, who was 61 at the time of her firing, says in her complaint that she has suffered “extreme anxiety, an enormous amount of stress, anxiety, sleepless nights, and deep, relentless sadness” — and has been unable to find new work.
Chambers separately told The Boston Globe that “there is a law that says you can get two exemptions; one is medical and one is religious. In this particular case, my client … stood up for the exemption, and they said: ‘No, we’re not giving it to you.’”
Gabana’s lawyer prevailed in a similar case
Chambers told The Defender that Gabana’s lawsuit is “analogous” to Bazinet v. Beth Israel Lahey Health Inc., a complaint filed by Amanda J. Bazinet, a former office manager at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton in Massachusetts, who was fired in 2021 for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons.
In August, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Bazinet, overturned an initial decision, and remanded the case to the lower court. Chambers represented Bazinet in that lawsuit.
Chambers said that in Gabana’s case, Tufts claims “undue hardship” — a legal principle that was also at issue in the Bazinet case. According to the 1st Circuit’s ruling, “Undue hardship under Title VII requires that employers ‘within reasonable limits must accommodate employees’ bona fide religious beliefs and practices.’”
According to Chambers, part of the discovery process in Gabana’s lawsuit will involve determining whether Tufts has granted other employees religious exemptions. “If that is the case, it defeats their undue hardship,” Chambers said.
Separately, Chambers told The Boston Globe that Tufts also questioned the sincerity of Gabana’s faith.
“When your client says: ‘I have a deeply held religious belief,’ and they say: ‘No, you don’t, you’re faking it, you don’t have it,’ what more can you do?” Chambers said.
Tufts ‘knew’ that the COVID vaccine was not safe or effective
In a statement to The Boston Globe, Tufts said it does not comment on pending litigation, but said that the COVID-19 vaccine has been “a crucial tool in reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death.”
“The health and safety of our patients, visitors, and staff has always been, and will continue to be, our highest priority,” the statement read.
Gabana’s lawsuit questions claims about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 shots.
“After a notification from the Food and Drug Administration … claiming that vaccines were ninety-one percent (91%) effective in preventing Covid-19 (Pfizer), it immediately became clear that it was not true,” the lawsuit states.
The complaint lists prominent officials who contracted COVID-19 in 2021 and 2022 despite being vaccinated, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Previous statements from former public health officials — including Birx and Fauci — acknowledging that the COVID-19 vaccines do not provide immunity were also included in the complaint.
“The defendant’s ‘vaccine policy’ was based on false and misleading claims that the vaccine was required to prevent employees from contracting the virus and spreading it to others, all of which was known to them,” the lawsuit states.
“The defendant knew at all times, or should have known, that the Covid-19 vaccine did not prevent the contraction or spread of the disease.”