Supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia have explained that they sought only to avoid a confrontation when they told African American employees to stay out of a patient's room after a man ordered that no blacks assist in the delivery of his child.
Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 3, 2003
NAACP wants hospital supervisors punished
Local leaders call for Abington hospital to discipline those who told minority staffers to stay out of a patient's room.
Local NAACP leaders yesterday called on Abington Memorial Hospital to discipline supervisors who told minority employees to stay out of a patient's room after a man demanded that only white staffers assist in the delivery of his baby.
( By Oliver Prichard, Inquirer Staff Writer, 10/04/2003 03:01 AM EDT)
Supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia have explained that they sought only to avoid a confrontation when they told African American employees to stay out of a patient's room after a man ordered that no blacks assist in the delivery of his child.
Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 3, 2003
NAACP wants hospital supervisors punished
Local leaders call for Abington hospital to discipline those who told minority staffers to stay out of a patient's room.
Local NAACP leaders yesterday called on Abington Memorial Hospital to discipline supervisors who told minority employees to stay out of a patient's room after a man demanded that only white staffers assist in the delivery of his baby.
Isn't it the Pts right to refuse to be taken care of by anyone s/he wants?
"A hospital needs to stand against this undercurrent of racism in our society."
The last statement say it all. If racism is accepted and allowed to thrive in this way it will never go away.....:stone
No every Pt has rights and unfortunately some Pts are racist that does not make the facility racist for honoring their wishes. Racism has been alive for a long time and will continue to live forever in some manner. There will always be a KKK because as Americans we have rights to start clubs even though others are against those clubs. I agree with many of the posts here that this is not the time to attempt to change this families views. You may have someone speak to them later to ascertain what their reasoning is for not wanting black staff and when they state that reason you may be able to discuss the issue with them but they are still allowed to feel and believe whatever they want.
America ain't it GREAT!!
I am in no way racist and do not belong to the KKK and would not be adverse to being one of the peole that attempt to help these people see the error of their ways. I am an American though and frimly believe in all which that stands for. A facility can not be held responsible for promoting racism by merely attempting to cater to their CUSTOMERS.
The Administration was gutless here. What would have been so difficult to have just told the husband of the pregnant woman that he was causing a disturbance to the delivery of care to his wife, and should remove himself from the premises if he continued?
In fact, the woman herselve had no absolute 'right' to set racial preconditions to how her care was given. If she didn't like the care as normally given, then she sould have been told she was free to go elsewhere. She could have called the KKK up and maybe they would have arranged for home birth monitored by a KKK chosen White doctor.
From the articles, there certainly was no emergency situation that might have been a mitigating factor in the admnstrative decision making.
Isn't it the Pts right to refuse to be taken care of by anyone s/he wants?
Yes, and she can go elsewhere for treatment.
She is entitled to appropriate treatment by a legitimate and qualified provider, not one that fits her personal color preferences (or height, weight, eye color, etc.)
Specializes in Gerontological Nursing, Acute Rehab.
My mom works for neurosurgeons who are in Abington Hospital, and she knows quite a number of nurses there. Now, of course this is second or third hand, but I heard that the father was getting belligerent about an African American nurse caring for his wife, and the sups got nervous with the whole situation because of the way the man was acting. Now, the womans in active labor, they can't kick her out, so to stop a dangerous situation from happening, they give in. Yes, it's wrong, but in the staff's and other patients best interest and personal safety, what else could have been done in that situation? I don't know what I would have done in that situation, esp. with a belligerent family member in my face.
If that is the truth of the situation, the answer is quite simple - The belligerant father should have been removed as he was interfering with proper administration of medical care. He did not have to be present at the birth if he could not control himself.
At least that is what a good hospital would have done.
Recently, I was confronted with a relative of a critically ill patient, screaming irrationally on the phone at me and threatening trouble when she got to the hospital. Security was supposed to stop her when she got to the hospital. They did not. When she got to the floor, the supervisors talked to her briefly, found that she was behaving improperly and interfering with the patient's care and promptly told her to leave. She refused and was carried out by security. The next day, when she tried to come up, it was made clear not to interfer with care and not to harass staff. She complied and things were fine.
Said hospital was recently rated in the top 15 nationwide, and the top one in my current assignment city.
What you are describing is BAD BEHAVIOR. While it is also racist in this case, it also extremely disfunctional. And we should not put up with it. If we allow it and indulge it, like spoiled bratty children that get their way, it will continue and escalate. And a facility that permits such bratty childish behavior to be rewarded, has only itself to blame/get sued when employees guit/get hurt or killed by out of control visitors.
People use the excuse that, "I just couldn't help myself" when treating nursing staff badly under stressful conditions. Yes, they can help themselves and if forced to behave appropriately, generally they will.
Unfortunately, that sometimes means carrying people out bodily, when they have "control issues".
Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.
caroladybelle said:
People use the excuse that, "I just couldn't help myself" when treating nursing staff badly under stressful conditions. Yes, they can help themselves and if forced to behave appropriately, generally they will.
Unfortunately, that sometimes means carrying people out bodily, when they have "control issues".
Preach it, sister! ? We need to foster the understanding that it is no more acceptable to abuse/assault/harass nursing staff than it would be to do the same to a stranger on the street. And the penalties (up to and including involvement of law enforcement) will be the same.
I have been a male nurse since 1984. I agree with chris_at_lucas. It makes me upset that Abington reacted the way they did, but this family was in crisis. In retrospect I think the administration really may have did a disservice to everyone involved, but hindsight is 100 %. During the crisis maybe it was the ideal time to teach this family about prejudice. Then again maybe not.
I question if patients should have the right to refuse care from certain nurses. I just don't know.
Years ago in Dallas I responded to a call bell from a little old lady who was in the bathroom. She looked at me and said: " I need a nurse, I mean a real nurse!!". I went and got a female nurse. Lady later got to know me and wrote a letter to the administration commending my skills and professional attitude. I still have the letter.
Specializes in Gerontological Nursing, Acute Rehab.
caroladybelle said:
If that is the truth of the situation, the answer is quite simple - The belligerent father should have been removed as he was interfering with proper administration of medical care. He did not have to be present at the birth if he could not control himself.
At least that is what a good hospital would have done.
I agree with you there. I feel that the sups in charge should have handled the situation differently, or at least called hospital adm. immediately so that they could come in and help deal with the situation or at least tell them what they wanted them to do. It's just another situation where nurses are put in situations where they just can't win....if they kicked him out or had him removed, then who's to say they wouldn't have gotten in trouble for that (Imagine the headline...."Father removed from watching his child's birth")
I am not saying that that kind of behavior is acceptable, but I don't think it's fair to judge the nurses in charge when we weren't in that situation, and we don't know what resources they had available to them at that time.
I was on the brunt end of a belligerent family member once. It wasn't anything I did, but the man when nuts and started yelling how he was going to rip someone's throat out, and have all our jobs.....then proceeded to back me in the corner and call me a B#### and had his finger in my face...all because the CNA forgot to put his mother's phone back on her bedside table. How did the sups deal with it? She just told me that I had to do 15 min checks on the resident's room to make sure everything was okay! Meanwhile I had about 4 vent pts and 2 trachs that needed frequent suctioning, as well as other acute pts, but I'm to check an A&O, ambulatory pts room? The DON was also there at the time....and no one had this man removed. The adm later reamed him out, and then he was civil to us.
I think what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to know how you would deal with something, and it's easy to say "I'd do this or that". We don't know what kind of support the nurses had at the hospital, or what kind of back up. I don't know if the nurses did all they could, or not. I would have liked the DON in my situation to have had the police called to remove the family member...but who know's if that would have made the situation worse, and I know it would have really upset his mother, who was trying to recover from surgery. So we do the best we can with the situation we're faced with, and I think that what the nurses at Abington did.
I agree with you there. I feel that the sups in charge should have handled the situation differently, or at least called hospital adm. immediately so that they could come in and help deal with the situation or at least tell them what they wanted them to do. It's just another situation where nurses are put in situations where they just can't win....if they kicked him out or had him removed, then who's to say they wouldn't have gotten in trouble for that (Imagine the headline...."Father removed from watching his child's birth")
Quite frankly, the headline would be a good thing. "Belligerant father removed from hospital" might teach people in a very public way not to be abusive to staff.
I do not blame the nursing staff. I blame the gutless administrators. One of these days, a nurse there will get killed by someone that should have been kicked out for bad behavior. And the killer will say, "I was stressed out and just couldn't help myself" and play the blame the victim game.
It not just a responsibility that the facility owes the staff. How about the other visitors and patients? They are affected by an abusive individual being on the floor. If an irate visitor behaves that way to the staff, they probably are rude to the visitors and patients as well and can endanger them as they escalate. Should they suffer because the administration wimps out?
There is no excuse for abusive behavior - PERIOD! And when administrators permit it, they are encouraging it to continue.
I am very proud that I am working at one of the highest rated facilities in the Country and they do not permit their staff to be abused.
And I refuse to work for facilities that do permit abusive of their staff.
She is entitled to appropriate treatment by a legitimate and qualified provider, not one that fits her personal color preferences (or height, weight, eye color, etc.)
She is entitled to appropriate treatment by a legitimate and qualified provider, not one that fits her personal color preferences (or height, weight, eye color, etc.)
She doesn't have to go elsewhere she is entitled to treatment right where she is and has a right to refuse care from anyone she deems inappropriate.
CCU NRS
1,245 Posts
Isn't it the Pts right to refuse to be taken care of by anyone s/he wants?