FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ — CVS has apologized to a transgender woman who said an Arizona pharmacist refused to fill one of her prescriptions for hormone therapy and questioned her loudly in front of staff and customers about why she was given the prescriptions.
The woman, Hilde Hall, shared her experience through the ACLU and said she had filed a complaint with the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy. CVS said the pharmacist is no longer employed by the company.
Hall wrote that the incident happened in April as she went to the CVS pharmacy in her town of Fountain Hills to fill her first prescriptions for hormone therapy. Hall said the pharmacist refused to fill one of her prescriptions and did not give her a clear reason for the refusal.
“He just kept asking, loudly and in front of other CVS staff and customers, why I was given the prescriptions,” Hall wrote.
She described feeling embarrassed and distressed and said she nearly started crying in the middle of the store.
“I didn’t want to answer why I had been prescribed this hormone therapy combination by my doctor,” she wrote. “I felt like the pharmacist was trying to out me as transgender in front of strangers. I just froze and worked on holding back the tears.”
Hall wrote that the pharmacist then refused to return the prescription note to her. When her doctor’s office tried to intervene on her behalf, the pharmacist still refused, she said. Finally, she had her prescription filled at the local Walgreens without any problems.
“CVS Health extends its sincere apologies to Ms. Hall for her experience at our pharmacy in Fountain Hills, Arizona last spring,” CVS said in a statement. “The conduct of the pharmacist, who is no longer employed by CVS, violated company policies and does not reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care.”
CVS also noted in its statement that for the past four years, it has earned a perfect score on the Human Right Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index.” Hall wrote that while the tool “is a valuable tool for assessing corporate policies and practices pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees,” there should be measures in place to ensure no other customer is humiliated like her.
CVS also apologized to Hall for not appropriately following up on her original complaint to CVS, which the company said was due to an “unintentional oversight.”
“We pride ourselves in addressing customer concerns in a timely manner and we are taking steps to prevent this isolated occurrence from happening again,” CVS said.
Last month, a woman in Arizona wrote that a pharmacist at a Walgreens in Peoria refused to fill her prescription for a medical abortion drug. The woman, who was nine weeks pregnant, was told by a doctor that she would ultimately have a miscarriage due to complications.
The pharmacist cited ethical reasons for doing so and Walgreens said in a statement that its policy allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for moral reasons. The statement also said that the pharmacist is then required to refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient’s need in a timely manner.
According to Arizona Central, Arizona is one of six states where pharmacists can refuse to fill a prescription of religious or moral grounds. Under Arizona law, companies must accommodate any religious convictions and pharmacists have to notify the company of such convictions in advance, according to Arizona Central.
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