A physician’s assistant who spent about $30,000 to relocate his family for a new job at a controversial Texas hospital claims he was betrayed by the medical facility when it pulled the plug just hours after being given a start date.
Mojgan Pedram was ready to start a new chapter with Texas Children’s Hospital after working as a health care pro in a California emergency room when excitement turned to despair.
He accepted the job in April, but was told by the Houston hospital the following month that it was no longer available because of a hiring freeze that shocked him.
“It’s definitely a betrayal,” he told The Post Tuesday. “He just left me without an explanation, without anything. He just wanted me to be here, and he said, ‘Okay, bye.'”
Pedram said he had his final health checkup on the morning of May 31 and was then given a mid-June start date by hospital workers.
But that same day, just a few hours later, he got a call from another staff member with devastating news.
A superior told him that new projects would be put on hold for months or even a year because the hospital was having financial problems, Pedram said.
“I moved based on this job offer and when I was here, they weren’t there,” he said. “They just left me in the air, me and my family without income.”
Pedram said he spent between $20,000 and $30,000 on moving expenses, but there were other expenses that also added up, including breaking rent in California and plane tickets to get to Texas.
Pedram’s 12-year-old son was also forced to move to a new area away from all his friends and high school.
“When he found out about all this, he was even more upset,” she recalled. “He said, ‘We moved and I lost all my friends and my old school because of what.'”
The lawsuit filed on July 29 seeks at least $400,000.
Pedram, who has been out of work for three months, will earn about $225,000 a year, according to the lawsuit. He expects to start his new job in September.
Her attorney, Jacob Scholl, told The Post that while Texas Children’s Hospital is aware of the great effort Pedram went through to do the work, he called it “disgusting” that the medical institution has yet to apologize to his client.
The lawsuit alleges the hospital knew or should have known about the hiring freeze starting in March and should have informed Pedran at that time.
Scholl said he cleared every hurdle and still didn’t have a job.
“What makes this case so extraordinary is that she knew she was moving, she knew she quit her job, she knew she had to take her kids out of school…she knew she had to move,” he said.
“He texted and emailed me through the whole process so it didn’t feel like he was on the road…
An email to Texas Children’s Hospital seeking comment was not returned Tuesday night.
The hospital cut 5% of its 20,000-person workforce this week due to several factors, including lower patient volume, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Texas Children’s Hospital came under fire earlier this year over allegations the nation’s largest children’s health care facility provided gender-affirming treatment to minors despite a state law prohibiting the practice.
