No Ethnic DIversity

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I have seen small mom and pop home health and hospice companies lack diversity in their staff.  Like the company is ran and employed by fellow family members, friends of the family who are like ethnically.  I am curious if others see this as a negative thing.  I have strayed away from the smaller mom and pop companies just for this reason.  

On 6/26/2022 at 8:32 PM, NICU Guy said:

Both are businesses. 

No, they are not on the same level. Sorry. But the rest of your post is on you. Don't care about that. 

 

 

 

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
3 hours ago, faithjohn said:

No, they are not on the same level. Sorry. But the rest of your post is on you. Don't care about that. 

 

 

 

Chop suey doesn't care who cooked it.  But hiring minorities to be sensitive to your patient population is just good business.

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Specializes in NICU.
13 hours ago, subee said:

But hiring minorities to be sensitive to your patient population is just good business.

My unit employs 300 RNs (more than the rest of the children's hospital combined). We have maybe 5-6 Afro-Americans, 5-6 Asian, 3 Middle Eastern. I have never heard of a parent complain or ask for a minority nurse. Parents are only concerned about the care their child is receiving and the rapport with the nurse.

Have you actually had patients voice their preference on having a minority nurse or are you imposing your views?

I had a patient the last two weeks in which the parents were African. I am sure they would have liked a nurse that spoke Swahili, but we are not going to actively seek out a Swahili speaking nurse on the rare instance that we get a Swahili speaking parent. Same goes for our Somali community in which we get 1-2 patients every 3-6 months. The hospital doesn't actively discriminate against minorities, we hire the nurses that choose to apply for the job openings. If all the applicants are white females, then we hire white females.

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13 hours ago, NICU Guy said:

 I have never heard of a parent complain or ask for a minority nurse. Parents are only concerned about the care their child is receiving and the rapport with the nurse.

Have you actually had patients voice their preference on having a minority nurse or are you imposing your views?

 

Maybe not in NICU because that's just such a sweet job, but yea unfortunately it does happen that pts/families aren't comfortable with nurses that aren't their race.  They'll kind of be intimidating or harrassing and then eventually they'll just ask if they can switch or they will just flat out ask one of us if they can switch.   And yes they will whisper the reason, it's just such a shame.  Depends on where you work I guess.

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Specializes in Home Care.

There seems to have been a generation of people that were in that bracket of patients. Back in -the late 90’s I did home health for a local hospital. That area used to be upper white middle class. Just saying it as it was. I happen to be Caucasian and at that time never felt issues with my own race as it was UNTIL.. I met it straight up racist older man about 70. So that would if made him born in the 1920’s… he told me he wanted a nurse only once a week. It had to be a female and white.  He specifically stated  I want a white gurl nurse on Wednesday only.   My manager who is still a friend of mine today… assigned him a very capable middle aged male nurse.  Looking back that area where I worked is completely diversified and most of that nonsense died with the people of that age bracket… but I have NO doubt it exists… have seen it since but not as blatent as the white woman on Wednesday. 

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.
14 hours ago, NICU Guy said:

My unit employs 300 RNs (more than the rest of the children's hospital combined). We have maybe 5-6 Afro-Americans, 5-6 Asian, 3 Middle Eastern. I have never heard of a parent complain or ask for a minority nurse. Parents are only concerned about the care their child is receiving and the rapport with the nurse.

Have you actually had patients voice their preference on having a minority nurse or are you imposing your views?

I had a patient the last two weeks in which the parents were African. I am sure they would have liked a nurse that spoke Swahili, but we are not going to actively seek out a Swahili speaking nurse on the rare instance that we get a Swahili speaking parent. Same goes for our Somali community in which we get 1-2 patients every 3-6 months. The hospital doesn't actively discriminate against minorities, we hire the nurses that choose to apply for the job openings. If all the applicants are white females, then we hire white females.

I work in NICU and have come across non-white patients who would prefer a non-white nurse, preferably one that is of the same race. Just because you yourself (I am presuming you are a white male, please correct me) haven't witnessed it, doesn't mean it doesn't  happen. I have had black parents sigh with relief went they finally see a black nurse caring for their child. 

It is very alarming how un-diverse NICU nursing is when many preemies are black. The nurses caring for the kids should reflect the diversity of the population (or as close to it as possible). It is also alarming that you don't see the value in having qualified nurses who can speak multiple languages to accommodate the population you are caring for, but not surprising. 

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.
28 minutes ago, Nonie76 said:

There seems to have been a generation of people that were in that bracket of patients. Back in -the late 90’s I did home health for a local hospital. That area used to be upper white middle class. Just saying it as it was. I happen to be Caucasian and at that time never felt issues with my own race as it was UNTIL.. I met it straight up racist older man about 70. So that would if made him born in the 1920’s… he told me he wanted a nurse only once a week. It had to be a female and white.  He specifically stated  I want a white gurl nurse on Wednesday only.   My manager who is still a friend of mine today… assigned him a very capable middle aged male nurse.  Looking back that area where I worked is completely diversified and most of that nonsense died with the people of that age bracket… but I have NO doubt it exists… have seen it since but not as blatent as the white woman on Wednesday. 

Yeah, more often it is a white patient who demands a white nurse than a non-white patient demanding for a non-white nurse. I see it quite frequently, unfortunately. 

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
15 hours ago, NICU Guy said:

My unit employs 300 RNs (more than the rest of the children's hospital combined). We have maybe 5-6 Afro-Americans, 5-6 Asian, 3 Middle Eastern. I have never heard of a parent complain or ask for a minority nurse. Parents are only concerned about the care their child is receiving and the rapport with the nurse.

Have you actually had patients voice their preference on having a minority nurse or are you imposing your views?

I had a patient the last two weeks in which the parents were African. I am sure they would have liked a nurse that spoke Swahili, but we are not going to actively seek out a Swahili speaking nurse on the rare instance that we get a Swahili speaking parent. Same goes for our Somali community in which we get 1-2 patients every 3-6 months. The hospital doesn't actively discriminate against minorities, we hire the nurses that choose to apply for the job openings. If all the applicants are white females, then we hire white females.

Well, if you live in Whitelandia then, obviously, the nurses will be prodominantly white.  That's just math.  But if you lived in a city like Minneapolis, it would behoove the hospital to pass out a few scholarships to Somali high school students to come work in their institutions.  If you live in NYC, it is worth it to attract nurses who speak Chinese, Hebrew, etc. because they NEED these people.  Once at 2 am in the morning we were finishing up on a pacemaker when a non-English speaking Filipino lady started screaming when we moved her to the stretcher and we had to wait for the overhead to find someone in the hospital to come to the OR stat so that we could communicate.  As it turned out,  the patient was screaming because of back pain, and the the surgeon recognized immediately that one of the pacemaker wires had pierced the myocardium.  Because of him, no time was wasted and we got her back to sleep right away and repaired the tear.  She was just lucky that housekeeper was on that night!  The moral of that story was don't do elective cases after 11 pm!

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

When doing private duty for elderly, I can't tell you how many times the patients, usually 75-95 years old, told me they did not want the agency to send any one black to be their nurse. This is not considered unusual by that age bracket, because this is the SOUTH, where that level of ignorant prejudice is still rampant. Patients would be 'nice' to a black care-givers face, and talk behind their backs to other (white, of course) nurses. I found it embarrassing and pretty appalling.

I was happy to follow the agency's rules about that: the patient must be the one to call the agency and make that request/demand themselves. It was surprising the # of patients would NOT call the agency because they didn't want to "get anyone in trouble." Most likely they, themselves! 

 

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.
1 hour ago, No Stars In My Eyes said:

When doing private duty for elderly, I can't tell you how many times the patients, usually 75-95 years old, told me they did not want the agency to send any one black to be their nurse. This is not considered unusual by that age bracket, because this is the SOUTH, where that level of ignorant prejudice is still rampant. Patients would be 'nice' to a black care-givers face, and talk behind their backs to other (white, of course) nurses. I found it embarrassing and pretty appalling.

I was happy to follow the agency's rules about that: the patient must be the one to call the agency and make that request/demand themselves. It was surprising the # of patients would NOT call the agency because they didn't want to "get anyone in trouble." Most likely they, themselves! 

 

Eh...I live in the Midwest. Racism against Black people is rampant everywhere. As a Black nurse, I have dealt with a horrifying amount of racism in the Midwest.

And since being embolden by a certain former president,  white racists have become even more vocal about their hatred against non-white people, even in the North.

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