Saving Gabe, Part II
Julie Irvine has been fighting for the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents for the past several weeks. Now she’s facing another fight.
“I have no insurance at the end of the month,” said Irvine, whose 9-year-old son, Gabe, has been in and out of hospitals dating back to last summer for treatment for depression and pervasive development disorder, a form of autism, and who is now out of a job.
Irvine thinks her recent termination from her job as the manager of the Ntelos retail store on Richmond Road in Staunton could have something to do with her struggles in the past several months to get Gabe into the right treatment program and her decision to go public with her push to have the state keep open the CCCA, which had been slated for closure in June in Gov. Tim Kaine’s amended budget for 2009-2010.
Irvine walked the halls of the Virginia General Assembly to lobby legislators to save the Commonwealth Center, which Irvine said was instrumental in getting her son back on the right track. The good news this week is that the proposed closure of the Center appears to be a dead issue. Dr. James Reinhard, the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, said this week that he thinks the Center will remain open given that the House of Delegates and the State Senate have both voted to include funding for continued operations at the CCCA in their respective budgets.
But that political victory is little solace to Irvine now, who is without a safety net having lost her job.
“I’m trying to get something to make sense,” Irvine said of her dismissal earlier this month. She shared with me documents related to her dismissal that do raise some questions about why she was let go, including a rambling complaint cited in one document from an unidentified customer that seemed to be personally motivated in nature.
A company official with whom I spoke said he could not offer comment on Irvine’s case specifically, but said that generally the company follows a procedure related to terminations that involves extensive communication between employees and management regarding issues that have been raised with an employee’s performance and expectations with respect to addresing those issues.
“It could have been my boss had a direct problem with me. There are so many possibilities. What I know is, my termination was because I was eight minutes late to a meeting,” Irvine said.
Gabe is back home, though Irvine is far from thinking that they’re out of the woods as far as his need for treatment in the future goes.
“At this point, without a job, without insurance, I don’t know what to do,” Irvine said.
- Story by Chris Graham
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Update – Gabe’s return back home was brief. He was just back home for a night as a routine part of his treatment.
I think this is pathetic. As if Ms Irvine didn’t have enough on her plate with the care of her son now this. I may have to rethink my Ntelos account in the near future.
With the limited info I can share, Chris did a great job getting this out. I fight for what is right, some don’t like this. They have people that have done far worse things however they get transfered to another store or promoted…
I just cannot write how UNBELIEVABLY displeased I am with Ntelos! This is obviously a Company that lacks compassion, and I have already canceled my account with them. I plan on sharing this story with my friends, and I have no doubt they will follow suit. There should be more people in the world like yourself.
nTelos had a golden opportunity to step up & look like a company that cared – They could have made a real effort to get behind the whole “Saving Gabe – save the CCCA” media story. This could have been a great benefit to their employee Ms. Irvine and themselves from the positive PR. Unfortunately they blew it & wind up looking like a company that does not care about the community or one of their employees that desparately needs help.
Looks like you dropped the call nTelos – I moved my phone service to Alltel.