Opinion ID: 6494059
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Interaction With Youthful, Elderly, and Otherwise Vulnerable Patients

Text: HHSC/HMC asserts that there is a rational relationship between a drug conviction and the risk that vulnerable patients might have “their medication taken from them.” Although this relationship is somewhat speculative, if an HMC radtech’s contact with patients involved a legally significant degree of access to controlled substances then it might create a rational relationship. However, questions of material fact remain regarding how a radtech at HMC could obtain controlled substances from a patient in the course of his or her duties. HHSC/HMC did not introduce undisputed evidence that its patients have physical control over controlled substances that might be diverted. HHSC/HMC did not assert that its patients have access to quantities of pills, or that several doses of medication are ever left out in a patient’s hospital room. HHSC/HMC did not assert that its patients bring controlled substances with them when undergoing radiographic imaging. HHSC/HMC merely asserted that there is a risk that vulnerable patients would have their medication taken. In the absence of undisputed material facts establishing access, HHSC/HMC was not entitled to summary judgment on this theory. Additionally, genuine issues of material fact remain regarding the asserted relationship between Shimose’s felony conviction and the risk that vulnerable patients “might be sold an illegal drug.” If HRS § 378-2.5 extended so broadly that any contact with the elderly or young children created a rational relationship to a prior drug conviction, then all individuals with prior drag convictions could be disqualified from any job that dealt with the public at large. But drag convictions often have nothing to do with elder/child abuse, and should not serve as a blanket disqualification from employment that requires a modicum of interaction with children and the elderly. Such a broad discriminatory prohibition would contradict the legislative compromise of HRS § 378-2.5.