A physician assistant who spent nearly $30,000 to relocate her family for a new job at a controversial Texas hospital claims she was betrayed when the hospital rescinded the opportunity just hours after giving her her start date.
Mojgan Pedram was ready to start a new chapter at Texas Children’s Hospital after working as a medical professional in a California emergency room, but her excitement turned to despair.
She accepted the job in April, but was shocked the following month when the Houston hospital told her the job no longer existed due to a hiring freeze.
“It was definitely a betrayal,” she told The Post on Tuesday. “They gave me no explanation, they just left me with nothing. They just said, ‘Okay, bye-bye,’ when all they wanted was for me to be here.”
Pedram said he underwent a final medical examination on the morning of May 31, after which hospital staff gave him a start date of mid-June.
But just a few hours later that day, she received a call from another staff member with shocking news.
Pedram said his boss told him the new job would likely be on hold for a few months, maybe even a year, because the hospital is in financial difficulty.
“I was offered this job, I moved here, and as soon as I got here the job was gone,” she said. “They left me in limbo, leaving me and my family with no income.”
Pedram said he spent between $20,000 and $30,000 on moving expenses, but other costs also piled up, including breaking his lease in California and paying for a plane ticket to Texas.
Pedram’s 12-year-old son was also forced to move to a new area, away from his friends and his middle school.
“When he found out, he became even more upset,” she recalled. “He said, ‘We moved away and we lost all our friends and our old school because of nothing.'”
The lawsuit, filed July 29, seeks at least $400,000 in damages.
Pedram has been unemployed for three months, but the lawsuit says she was making about $225,000 a year. She is scheduled to start a new job in September.
Her lawyer, Jacob Scholl, told The Post that Texas Children’s Hospital knew Pedram had worked hard to get the job and said it was “sickening” that the medical institution had not apologized to his client.
The lawsuit alleges that the hospital knew or should have known about the hiring freeze as early as March and should have notified Pedran at that time.
Scholl claimed that despite overcoming all the hurdles, he ultimately did not get the job.
“What’s unusual about this case is they knew she was going to move, they knew she was going to quit her job, they knew she was going to have to pull her kids out of school … they knew she was going to have to relocate,” he said.
“They were texting and emailing her throughout the entire process, so it wasn’t like she was on her way… She had completely changed her life and they knew it.”
An email seeking comment from Texas Children’s Hospital was not responded to Tuesday night.
The hospital cut 5% of its 20,000 employees this week due to a combination of factors, including declining patient volumes. The Houston Chronicle reported.
Texas Children’s Hospital came under fire earlier this year amid allegations that the nation’s largest pediatric medical facility had performed gender reassignment surgery on minors, despite state law banning the procedure.
