racisim in a Philadelphia hospital

[salelover]

I live in the area near Abington Hospital and am also in administration in another hospital. I support the supervisors decision to assign non-black staff to this case. This was a "quick fix" to the problem. There is no right or wrong answer, but this solution solved the immediate problem. Steps now need to be taken to avoid simular occurances. Had the supervisor faced the problem head on and not complied with this families request, the news papers headlines and the ensuing law suit would have read, "Hospital failed to honor family's request, insensititive to mothers needs, and placed unneeded stress on a woman in labor."

How can you discipline supervisors for honoring the patients request, even though the request may be unreasonable, but causes no physical harm???????? We are to be CUSTOMER oriented.

I hope I never have to make a decision on a simular problem. Remember we enounter patients whose decisions would not be the same that we would make, yet we respect their decisions. Is this any different?

I believe JCAHO needes to initate policy statements on handleing family requests on simular ethical issues. I am sure this will be a sentinal event and other hospitals need to look at this incident and develop guidelines and procedures based on their mission and goals.