'Racial refusal' is a phrase that refers to the practice of patients and / or family members who refuse care from particular nurses, physicians, nursing assistants, techs and other types of healthcare workers due to the caregiver's racial-ethnic background.
For starters, 'racial refusal' is a term I constructed several years ago to denote the practice of patients and / or family members who refuse care from certain nurses, physicians, aides, techs and other healthcare workers solely because of the caregiver's racial-ethnic background.
Racial refusals can be inflicted upon staff members of any race, creed, ethnicity or national origin. Also, patients belonging to any racial-ethnic background are capable of refusing particular staff members for reasons that are purely race-based. Most importantly, these refusals tend to throb like a virtual slap in the face whenever they do happen to a person.
I currently live in a part of the country where racial refusals take place with regularity. In fact, the specialty hospital where I am employed is presently attempting to accommodate the racially biased preferences of a patient who has requested that no black members of staff provide any care for her.
Anyhow, these types of requests are normally accommodated at my workplace because nursing management and hospital administration wants to ensure that the facility's Press Ganey patient satisfaction scores remain above a certain threshold. In exchange for favorable patient satisfaction scores and repeat stays, management will attempt to 'WOW!!' the patient by making staff assignments based on racial-ethnic background.
On the other hand, the hospital where I work cannot always reasonably accommodate patients' race-based requests for staff members, especially on the night shift, due to the fact that every single one of the night shift nurses and techs in the entire building might be from the same racial-ethnic background on some evenings.
My views on this issue might be controversial, but here they are. I feel that patients who are not actually paying for their care (read: charity care) have no business refusing caregivers due to race.
I also feel that patients who receive help from the federal government to fund their care (read: Medicare or Medicaid) have no business refusing caregivers of a certain race.
After all, people of all races and nationalities pay taxes that help fund these programs. Finally, I feel that patients who are receiving care at any hospital or other healthcare facility because they lack the education and expertise to provide their own medical treatment and nursing care have no business refusing caregivers due to racial reasons.
One more thought before I depart for the evening.
As a black female, I would prefer that these racially prejudiced patients have their requests accommodated, as contradictory as this may seem.
Here is my reasoning.
A patient who does not want me to serve as his nurse can make boldfaced claims regarding poor nursing care and fabricate allegations of abuse that could make my professional life tremendously miserable. These patients are generally set in their ways, resistant to change, frequently spiteful, and sometimes elderly.
Their racial prejudice is their personal problem of which I want absolutely no part. I would prefer to live and let live.
No matter what you do, always hold your head high in the face of a racial refusal. Even though the patient is essentially rejecting you based on your race, you are still worthy of respect, dignity and a basic right to exist in the society in which we live. It is unfortunate that some people have not changed with the times.
