NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – A former government employee is staying, contracted COVID-19 while working and like her former employer, the New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Family Affairs, refuses to give her money to employees to support those who are injured doing the work. In early December, New Mexico was in the midst of a huge spike in coronavirus cases. During that time, a former CYFD household clerk who worked at home said she had to come to the office just to move furniture.
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“The employer, in this case CYFD, has made a choice. They decided to require their employees to move their own offices during COVID. They put my client in a position where she was in a closed environment for five hours or more, indoors, in close contact with six people and the department really did not enforce a mask rule, ”said attorney Jacob Candelaria.
Candelaria, who serves as the state’s senator, says his client wore a mask. However, shortly after her CYFD supervisor Philip Rodriguez asked her to come to the office, she developed symptoms and tested positive. Candelaria says her husband was also infected with COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized for five days. Candelaria says COVID has hit its customer hard.
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The former employee claims she was coerced into filing the workers’ injury complaint and now, seven months later, she has persistent symptoms such as difficulty breathing. Candelaria says she applied for workers’ compensation to ensure her health care would be covered by the state, but her application has been denied repeatedly.
“I think what we have here is a classic case where the state wants people to do what I say but not the way I do. They expect everyone to abide by it, but when the state government has a case of non-compliance that harms a state employee they are very quick to deny any responsibility and that is very disappointing, “said Candelaria.
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The claim was not resolved in medication on Monday and is now pending a full hearing in an administrative judge at the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Administration. A spokesman says he cannot speak specifically about cases, but says the burden of proof is on the employee to prove that the injury or illness occurred in the course of their job.
In a tweet, Candelaria called on the governor’s government for denying the claim, but the governor’s office says it has no role in overseeing the workers’ compensation process.
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