Bus driver fired for stopping due to menstrual pain: was there any reason for this?

A Bus driver was fired in Almería for stopping a car in a rest area due to severe menstrual pain who suffered A woman suffering from endometriosis, claimed that she did it not only for herself, but also thought about the safety of passengers. However, this was not a sufficient excuse for the transport company, which terminated the contract without hesitation. Now, how right was the worker when she said she did it for the passengers too?

Before answering this question, two questions must be taken into account. The first is that with new abortion law approved in the same year 2023, the right to request sick leave due to menstrual pain. Therefore, this woman had the right not to drive the bus. As for the latter, stopping at places of unscheduled rest is allowed on an emergency basis, due to extreme fatigue.

Therefore, although it can be doubted that he did not ask for leave, being sudden painthere was nothing wrong with the bus stop. But it is also true that he could have done it for the benefit of the passengers. Otherwise, they could all be in danger.

Intense menstrual pain due to endometriosis

As explained in the post General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the bus driver suffers from endometriosis. This disease is characterized growth of endometrial-like tissue in places other than the uterus. This leads to irregular periods, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual pain.

This is something that can change from month to month and from one patient to another. However, in some cases it is so great that it can be compared with sciatica. The pain of sciatica is so intense that perhaps no driver can be reproached for stopping a vehicle in the midst of an outbreak. Therefore, one should not criticize a patient with endometriosis for doing the same with respect to menstrual pain.

Yes, the passengers were in danger

In 2014, a group of scientists from University of Bathin the UK published a study that analyzed how menstrual pain affects Female concentration and multitasking.

It is often said that they are more cunning than men and can do several things at the same time. This has some physiological explanation, although generalizations about it are questionable. What is undeniable is that menstrual pain affects the brain to the point where it becomes very difficult to multi-task and even concentrate on just one.

Participants in the study had to undergo a series of attention tests. For example, in one of them they needed to see a series of letters and tell as soon as possible if the third one is the same as the first one. In another experiment, they were asked to quickly switch between two different tasks and tested whether they could do so without losing focus.

All reported suffering severe menstrual pain and they did the test twice. One before menstruation and one during it. It was seen that their performance was much worse when they suffered from menstrual cramps.

According to the authors of the study, this may be due to lack of rest the night before or just the pain becomes abstraction. One thing is clear: driving a vehicle, and even more so a bus with passengers, requires a lot of attention, as well as focusing on many issues at once. Therefore, it is more than likely that a person with endometriosis will not be able to safely complete this task, either for themselves or for passengers.

It is true that this study was conducted with a small number of participants, total 52. However, this clearly shows the importance of further research in this regard. Even so, the recently fired driver had plenty of reasons to stop the bus, if you rely on science. You don’t have to be a scientist to know this, though. Anyone who is menstruating knows how unbearable pain during menstruation can be. For this reason, although there will undoubtedly be more factors that have not been made public, in order to know whether the dismissal was a good measure, we must return to what was commented at the beginning. Would you fire a man who stopped a bus because of a sciatica attack? If the answer is no, you should definitely think deeply about it.