WLOS — ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Mission Hospital has been accused of religious discrimination in a complaint that says the hospital fired employees after they were filing exemptions for the flu vaccine.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed the lawsuit on Thursday.

In the complaint, the EEOC alleges Mission Hospital discriminated against former employees by not taking into account their religious beliefs.

Those beliefs, the lawsuit said, prevented the employees from getting a required flu vaccine.

In fact, those employees filed religious exemption requests that would allow them to not receive the vaccine but submitted the paperwork after a September 1 deadline.

Mission's president and CEO, Dr. Ronald Paulus, said the hospital doesn't discriminate.

"We clearly accommodate religious belief, all we do is ask that they take two minutes to fill out the form and put it in," he said.

The deadline each year corresponds to what the CDC predicts will be the beginning of flu season.

Dr. Paulus said employees who don't receive the vaccine after the deadline are putting patients at risk.

"The simple truth is, about 50,000 people die every year from the flu," he said.

Employees who are given an exemption, and don't receive the vaccine, are often moved to other areas, where patients are less at risk of contracting the flu.

Dr. Paulus also said employees are given 90 days' worth of reminders to get exemption paperwork in if they plan to file.

In the lawsuit, the EEOC asks that going forward, Mission Health be required to accommodate all employees' religious beliefs at the time the request is made, not before what they call an "arbitrary" deadline.