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Firing stirs debate on disability
rights
Veterans health system terminates social worker with cerebral palsy
By: Julie Patel
"When people review Cheryl Hewitt's résumé, they see an award-winning social
worker with 18 years of experience who is also a grass-roots organizer in the
campaign for disability rights. When they meet the woman behind the résumé, they
see a cerebral palsy victim in a wheelchair, her arms having spasms sporadically
and her head sometimes tilted to one side.
But last week, Hewitt drew notice as a worker who had just been fired, in an
incident that had made her a cause celebre in the disability rights community.
``You see before you a woman with a broken body but not a broken mind,'' Bill
Luttrell told an audience of 35 people gathered to support Hewitt's
discrimination complaint against her employer, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health
Care System.
Hewitt's official last day is Friday. She says hospital managers told her that
she violated patient confidentiality when she allowed her cousin to write down
personal information -- last names and the last four digits of their Social
Security numbers -- after he watched her struggle to make them legible with her
shaky handwriting."
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