Michigan hospital sued over 'No African American Nurse for a baby- father's request'

[cruisin]

I'm not saying nothing could have happened but I think it's unlikely and it would have been easy enough to do that baby's tests only when the other babies were mostly in their mother's rooms if it was truly considered an issue. Or they could have called a security guard to stand by the door while that baby was in the nursery.

But, would that really have changed the problem? They would have gone from no African American nurses can touch the child, to a security guard must be present if an African American nurse touches the child. I don't think either situation would be complimentary to the nurse. The issue here, at least for me, is that the father was an ass. There is no reflection on the nurse, at all. If you read through the posts here, no one thinks less of the nurse. No one questions her ability. Everyone is clearly thinking that the father is the looser. I think it was a no win situation. We don't want to give in to racist requests. But, on the other hand, this could have turned into a far worse racist tirade, by doing nothing. Sometimes we have to weigh what the consequences will be. Going along with the jerk for the 24-48 hours he would be there might have seemed less harmful to the nurse than putting her in a potentially ugly situation.

As others have already said, this is speculation. We don't really know exactly what happened.

[iloveemoticons]

Did her friends have tattoos? If they had tattoos, watch out for them!

Darn it, I hadn't thought of that detail :lol

Um...that is the kind of logic....not making a difficult call when called for...that left a very ill teenager in Newton out of a hospital.

I'm not sure what situation you're referring to, but I'm not using any "logic," I'm just presenting the fact that drug dealers, criminals, gangbangers, and the mentally ill are routinely in hospitals and yet routinely denied irrational requests. Is that not true? Using your logic, anytime a drug addict demands painkillers, that request should be granted. Anytime a gangbanger requests something, that request should be granted. Otherwise people around them could be hurt. And the hospital granting those requests could ultimately lead to more potential for violence, because people would start to think that they could threaten violence in hospitals to get their way.

I have always had the personal impression that hospitals are not very willing to grant patient requests, even legitimate ones. When I was in high school, one of my friends started getting bad headaches and other symptoms. Her parents took her to the family doctor a few times and he kept saying she was fine. She got worse and her parents took her to the ER, and they said pretty much the same thing, and gave her some flu medication. Her parents were desperate and begged them to admit her, because they knew something was seriously wrong, but they didn't (not due to lack of insurance). So they took her home and she ended up dying of meningitis at age 15. Everyone knew her because she was really outgoing, in student government, volleyball star, and the entire small town was shocked. To think that this medically irrelevant, racist request was granted because that guy had a tattoo just infuriates me to no end.

[AxelAnnie]

Darn it, I hadn't thought of that detail :lol

I'm not sure what situation you're referring to, but I'm not using any "logic," I'm just presenting the fact that drug dealers, criminals, gangbangers, and the mentally ill are routinely in hospitals and yet routinely denied

irrational

requests. Is that not true? Using your logic, anytime a drug addict demands painkillers, that request should be granted. Anytime a gangbanger requests something, that request should be granted. Otherwise people around them could be hurt. And the hospital granting those requests could ultimately lead to more potential for violence, because people would start to think that they could threaten violence in hospitals to get their way.

There is a difference between requesting schedule 3 meds and requesting a preference in who treats you. I know the sticking point is that the request is racial, and that sort of request is politically taboo. Criminals (do you mean the incarcerated kind?), Mentally ill (do you mean institutionalized?) are restrained and do not have the rights and privileges the rest of us do. "Dangerous People" i.e. gangbangers (if the hospital thinks their red bandana is gonna cause a gang war, or if there is a "rumble" - LOL) will have police and security right there.

As obnoxious as the guys request is.....it is not irrational.

1.
without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2.
without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3.
not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.
4.
not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.

It is his belief. (I am not condoning it, the guy is a moron). But is belief is no more irrational than a Christian Scientist who denies treatment, or a Jehovah Witness who won't allow a blood transfusion. The guy, btw, didn't just have a tattoo....he had a Neo-Nazi symbol proclaiming his belief in inferior races. Back to the gang banger...........if they wanted only their "homies" to be around them, or no nurses in the other gang's colors around......would that be rational? And, believe me, the hospital would be staying clear of the gang bangers. The hospital has a duty to assess the risk and ask accordingly.

I am sorry about your friend. Someone should have done a spinal tap.

[aliceanne]

As several other posters have stated I don't see how this guy can live and presumably work in Flint, MI without interacting with non-whites. The hospital should have just told him he can leave. If his wife and baby needed further care he can pay for an ambulance to transport them to the place of his choice. His wife has been pregnant for nine months he should have made the necessary arrangements beforehand. Personally I think the guy likes the attention he gets by creating drama. There are plenty of all white towns in the U.S. if he feels that strongly about exposing his child to other races. It's not as if Flint is a job seeker's paradise.

[Vash01]

Looks like the lawsuit has been settled for that particular nurse. The article mentions a second lawsuit, but not much detail about that one.

It does describe how the whole thing started.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/2...-lawsuits.html

[PDilemma]

As several other posters have stated I don't see how this guy can live and presumably work in Flint, MI without interacting with non-whites. The hospital should have just told him he can leave. If his wife and baby needed further care he can pay for an ambulance to transport them to the place of his choice. His wife has been pregnant for nine months he should have made the necessary arrangements beforehand. Personally I think the guy likes the attention he gets by creating drama. There are plenty of all white towns in the U.S. if he feels that strongly about exposing his child to other races. It's not as if Flint is a job seeker's paradise.

Where are these all white towns full of jobs? I live in a midwestern town of about 4500 people and it is not all white. I spent ten years of childhood in a rural farming town of 250 and it wasn't even all white. It also had hardly any jobs.

[MacMadame]

But, would that really have changed the problem? They would have gone from no African American nurses can touch the child, to a security guard must be present if an African American nurse touches the child.

The new details change a lot of the speculation but I do think, yes, it changes the problem.

In some of the situations that have been described, gangbangers at the hospital, mentally ill being admitted, etc., this is exactly what they do. If they think the situation may escalate into violence, they have extra security available as one of their precautions. It's completely reasonable to me.

It does describe how the whole thing started.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/2...-lawsuits.html

So now we know more details and we can see that this was a more complicated situation with a sick baby who was there for a long time, not a healthy birth where you can just tell the guy to take a hike if he doesn't like how the situation was handled and have there be no consequences to the baby. (Which is not to say they shouldn't have anyway; just that the baby's health now becomes a bigger factor in the equation.)

The interesting thing to me is the quote that the man's tattoo seem to invoked anger and outrage in the staff. It doesn't say that the man or his actions did that. They were completely reacting to the tattoo. This is part of what I was alluding to when people were saying "he had a racist tattoo; of course he was violent!" If the man never did anything to give any indication that he would erupt into violence -- make threatening gestures, say threatening things or otherwise acting like he had a bad temper and would be violent if he didn't get his way -- then I wonder how much other people's reaction contributed to this mess.

[aliceanne]

I think he could find a community in Maine, NH, Vermont, or Idaho where he wouldn't have to interact with other races. The unemployment rate in MI is about the worst in the nation, and his unwillingness to tolerate other races must limit his job options even further. My point is his only reason for staying in such a place is that he enjoys the confrontation. He could hardly pick a more racially diverse community.

[MacMadame]

My point is his only reason for staying in such a place is that he enjoys the confrontation. He could hardly pick a more racially diverse community.

You don't know that. There are many reasons to stay in a community you aren't politically compatible with.

He may have family there and wants to stay near them or even needs to stay near them (say, he has a parent who needs carrying for). Also, many people have trouble moving away from the area they grew up in. He may own property or a business there that would be hard to sell.

[Louis]

But, was the nurse better off for not having to deal with this low life? Absolutely.

I disagree. No one should feel like they should have to do a different job because of their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

All of the potential reasons why the hospital may have been justified are rooted in fear. Time to get over it and be as brave as this nurse was.

I'd feel a lot worse knowing that my niece or nephew was born into a world where "no African American" sticky-notes were A-OK than a world where hospital security had to be called to deal with a racist nut.

I thank this nurse for exposing medicine's "dirty little secret" and am happy she got a settlement.

[OlieRow]

I have always had the personal impression that hospitals are not very willing to grant patient requests, even legitimate ones. When I was in high school, one of my friends started getting bad headaches and other symptoms. Her parents took her to the family doctor a few times and he kept saying she was fine. She got worse and her parents took her to the ER, and they said pretty much the same thing, and gave her some flu medication. Her parents were desperate and begged them to admit her, because they knew something was seriously wrong, but they didn't (not due to lack of insurance). So they took her home and she ended up dying of meningitis at age 15. Everyone knew her because she was really outgoing, in student government, volleyball star, and the entire small town was shocked. To think that this medically irrelevant, racist request was granted because that guy had a tattoo just infuriates me to no end.

Most ED physicians don't have admitting privileges. They can tell a consultant (in this case a Pediatrician) that they have a patient they feel needs admission, but they need someone to accept the patient as an inpatient, admit them, and take over their care.

[PDilemma]

Most ED physicians don't have admitting privileges. They can tell a consultant (in this case a Pediatrician) that they have a patient they feel needs admission, but they need someone to accept the patient as an inpatient, admit them, and take over their care.

This. Plus insurance can refuse to allow admittance. This happened to me over the objections of my doctor once.

[numbers123]

The patient was not the father.

[MacMadame]

The patient was not the father.

This is true but the father was the speaker for the patient. So if the father says "no AA nurses for my baby" the staff has to act as if the baby said it.

Again, that doesn't mean they have to accede to the request. But they have to treat it like a request from the patient, whatever that means for their own protocols.

[aliceanne]

You don't know that. There are many reasons to stay in a community you aren't politically compatible with.

He may have family there and wants to stay near them or even needs to stay near them (say, he has a parent who needs carrying for). Also, many people have trouble moving away from the area they grew up in. He may own property or a business there that would be hard to sell.

Sometimes in life you have to make hard choices. It's not the hospital's problem that he chooses to stay somewhere where he doesn't like his fellow citizens.

[smileyskate]

Haven't read all the threads but I understand the nurse being upset. (Also agree the Nazi probably likes the attention. Scary.). However, deserving a ton of cash from the hospital/health care system (or their insurer) may be a different issue. Personally seen similar things happen in care related professions, not just about skin color, but maybe religion, mobility (handicapped) and of course AGE.

[OliviaPug]

Sometimes in life you have to make hard choices. It's not the hospital's problem that he chooses to stay somewhere where he doesn't like his fellow citizens.

But it IS the hospital's problem that they had to deal with this situation -- that ultimately erupted into a mess. It is very much the hospital's problem, the nurse's problem, and the community-at-large's problem. The hospital may very well have to deal with a similar situation in the future. Do you honestly think if this one guy moves to some hypothetical all-white community that such a situation will never present itself again? Not all white folks are neo-nazis. Some white folks even have racially-mixed children. Some even adopt children from other countries, such as China, and are church-going and tolerant. This guy would be hard-pressed to find a community of individuals who agreed entirely with his point-of-view and prejudices. And that goes for anyone, anywhere.

Banishment is not the answer. We live in a diverse, integrated society. Open dialogue is a good start. And, although I'm sorry to see anyone hurt by this situation, I do see positives that will come from it, including this dialogue, the hospital's review of its policies, and wider attention and debate. All of these things will hopefully contribute to other people and facilities making better choices in the future.

O-

[Rex]

I'd say, "If you don't like it, there's the door"

As a blood bank technologist, I've lost track of the number of times a patient called and asked if they could be transfused with a unit donated by someone who was the same religion or race. The answer? No can do. If you refuse blood from the blood bank, have your family donate for you.

This one...

[taf2002]

The father made what many of us see as an unreasonable request. Let's say a patient in the hospital was only willing to pay for semi-private room but requested a private room anyway. If the hospital said no, there would be no issue. Request received, request denied. It's so simple.

I have been in a similar situation. When I first went to work for the phone company in 1982 I was asked by a black coworker to take over a call she had started. The reason - the customer didn't want their business handled by a black person. I didn't want to take over the call but at that time the precedence had been established that if a customer asked, we would comply & I was specifically told by my supervisor to do it. And there were a lot of customers who asked. I only did it a couple of times, then I couldn't handle it anymore. It made me sick. So I pushed for a policy change & I made it clear that if I took over a call I would lecture/try to shame the caller, which I did a time or two. Several customers called my supervisor & complained. I knew I could lose my job over it but I knew if I didn't protest then I was just as guilty. And I didn't want to work for a business with discrimitory policies.

When the man saw that nurse handling his child, if he saw something he didn't like he could have asked that she not handle his child. But to ask to bar any particular race & then for someone in authority to honor his request was asinine. That person is just as much at fault as the nazi for the brohaha.

[sk8er1964]

I think he could find a community in Maine, NH, Vermont, or Idaho where he wouldn't have to interact with other races. The unemployment rate in MI is about the worst in the nation, and his unwillingness to tolerate other races must limit his job options even further. My point is his only reason for staying in such a place is that he enjoys the confrontation. He could hardly pick a more racially diverse community.

Have you been around Flint? It is not diverse - it's pretty much segregated. It is a predominently African American community surrounded by a sea of lilly white. Livingston County is 95% white. Northern Oakland County, Lapeer, most of Genesee except for Flint, white white white. You could easily live your entire life in that area and never come in contact with a person of color, unless you ventured into the big cities. There's also rumored white supremacy and KKK types running around in the thumb area and parts of Livingston County, so people shouldn't be totally shocked that there'd be a Nazi-type in that area.

ETA: For those not familiar with this area, here's a map (go to slide 7). Flint is a bit up and out from the corner of Oakland County.