PROFESSION

VA hospital ordered to reinstate advocate for IMGs

Implementation of the EEOC ruling is suspended pending a decision on the Fargo VA medical center's appeal.

By Beth Wilson, AMNews contributor. Aug. 1, 2005.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently ruled that the Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Fargo, N.D., must reinstate a physician who said he was fired in retaliation for advocating for colleagues working through the H1-B visa program.

Under the decision, which the VAMC is appealing, Rudranath Talukdar, MD, should receive his former position with back pay following his 2002 dismissal.

Dr. Talukdar, who assisted an investigation into whether the VAMC was underpaying H1-B physicians, was terminated after the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Dept. of Labor ordered the medical center to pay more than $200,000 in back wages to 10 physicians using work visas.

Under H-1B visas, employers can hire nonimmigrant doctors who are not U.S. citizens for set periods. However, the law makes it clear that those employees must be paid the same as a U.S. citizen. The government does that to "protect U.S. workers' " wages by removing any potential economic incentive to hire temporary foreign workers over U.S. citizens.

Dr. Talukdar, who worked as an internist at the hospital, claims he was fired in retaliation, but the hospital said it did not renew Dr. Talukdar's temporary assignment as staff physician because of a budget deficit.

Dr. Talukdar and psychiatrist Harjinder K. Virdee, MD, who also aided in the government investigation and was then terminated, filed a complaint with the Dept. of Labor alleging that they had been fired for cooperating with the investigation. That is illegal under whistle-blower protections.

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