Sarah Whitehead (33) is taking hospital giant Life Healthcare to the Labour Court, accusing it of unfairly dismissing her from Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Cape Town, says a TimesLIVE report. Whitehead claims she was fired last August – after more than four years as a part-time doctor in the rehabilitation unit, where she worked with disabled patients – on the basis of her disability.

Whitehead was diagnosed with developmental venous anomaly while still at school. The condition impairs her mobility and balance, and her symptoms worsened when she was at UCT medical school.

Her lawyer, Glyn Williams, said in August last year, she was called into a meeting and told there were ‘concerns’ about her ability to care for patients, and that ‘they would find someone else to perform her duties’.

Whitehead was ‘shocked and profoundly distressed’ and two days later, received a ‘letter of termination’.

On claims that Whitehead was an independent contractor and that her appointment as such was ‘lawfully terminated’, Williams says this was untrue, and that she was a part-time permanent employee.

‘She complies with the very definition of permanent employee under the Labour Relations Act,’ he said. The report notes the case is due to be heard in the Labour Court in June.

Full TimesLIVE report