Walgreens Fires Diabetic Employee For Eating Chips

A Walgreens employee with diabetes has lost her job after the drugstore fired her for eating a bag of chips to counter a diabetic attack.

Josefina Hernandez was a cashier at the company's South San Francisco store and had been a long time Walgreen employee for 18 years. She maintained a spotless career with no disciplinary marks on her employment report. While working one day, she felt a diabetes attacking coming about from low blood sugar. To counter the episode, she purchased a bag of chips and consumed it while working.

Walgreens terminated her.

Hernandez would later file a lawsuit with the San Francisco division of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In a statement to the EEOC, she said:

“I almost always carry a piece of candy in my pocket for situations when I feel my blood sugar getting low, but I didn’t have anything on me this time. I knew I needed to do something quickly, so I reached for a bag of chips and paid for them as soon as I could. I worked for Walgreens with no problems almost two decades, so I am very upset to lose my job over this.”

Now here we have a retail drugstore. One who sells diabetes products including diabetes monitors, test strips, and sugar pills. And on the other side, we have a woman who claims she had a diabetic attack and needed to eat potato chips to get her blood sugar up. In a court of law, lets go to the video with that from the store cameras.

If Mrs. Hernandez's claim is true, clearly the manager at the Walgreens San Francisco store should be disciplined, if not fired for even pursuing this issue. I would also hesitate to say that the regional manager and human resource employee assigned to the case should also be terminated.

Whether it is a customer or employee that undergoes a diabetic attack, a concern over the victim should be a main priority, rather than worrying about company policy and a bag of chips eaten during work hours.

Let's look at this another way. Let's say you are a Walgreens customer that was having a medical emergency and needed water because you were dehyrdated. What would happen if an employee at Walgreens saw you reaching for a bottle of Evian and you proceeded to drink it because you didn't feel well? Even if you walked on over to the counter and paid for it. Apparently, the Walgreens SF store manager doesn't have any common sense to know what dehydration is. He will just kick you out of the store and let you pass out awaiting an ambulance. Never mind if you suffer outside the store.

What kind of statement is that being made to an employees of Walgreens and their customers?

Something tells me that because of the pettiness, there is more to this story that isn't being said. That is, more along the lines of a manager who didn't get along well with an employee and vice versa. Regardless, this has put Walgreens in the spotlight and it doesn't look good either way you look at it.

As a person with diabetes, I am disappointed with Walgreens. I have been a loyal customer with them for over 20 years. Over the last 15 years I have experienced hypoglycemia episodes myself and they definitely are a serious matter to not be ignored. At times one can feel dizzy, weak, and have difficultly breathing. Diabetes attacks also come with a high degree of anxiety and panic. To put it bluntly, it feels like you are dying - that is nothing to be disciplined and terminated over if your life is on the line.

Frankly I'd rather shop at a drugstore that actually cared about its employees and customers.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.