Why a Philadelphia hospital gave in to a racist demand?

jkaee · Jun 30, 2004

caroladybelle said:

I have a problem with this.
The family member should been arrested for this behavior. It doesn't matter that he has "issues". WE ALL HAVE ISSUES, but it gives no one the right to behave in an abusive manner. And the situation obviously did not merit his outburst.

The only way to stop people from behaving this way is to enforce penalties against this behavior. When they find that they cannot behave that way, only then do they stop. By allowing them to continue bad behavior, we encourage it to continue against others. Like spoiled bratty children, someone has to take a stand for them to learn proper behavior.

I am willing to bet that this person will have more/worse outbursts in the future...all of which interfere with the proper functioning of a unit, unless someone ceases to put up with their bad behavior.

No we do not need to teach manners, but it is not about manners. It is about maintaining a good healing environment for ALL the patients and staff, not giving in to one out of control individual.

You are right ladycarolbelle, and this person was dealt with by the administrator, and was told that if something like that ever happened again, the police would be called and his mother may have to go to another facility. My point was, and maybe it didn't come across this way in my original post, is that in the heat of the moment, when things can either blow up or not depending on what we do, we need to think of the safety of ourselves and other patients first, and not try to make a point. After the said woman delivered, then ADMINSTRATION (in other words, not the nursing staff) should have addressed this issue with the husband, if it came up again. But not while the woman was in labor. Emotions are running high at that time anyway, and I feel it wasn't the place to enforce something like that RIGHT THEN. Later, by all means. Just not then. The same in my situation. The next day, it was all addressed with the man and his wife. But I can guarantee you if someone tried to do it when he was irate, it would've just gotten worse, and maybe someone would have been hurt.

Luckily, that was the only time I've had to deal with someone that irate and out of control. And I haven't been in the situation that the Abington nurses have been. Working LTC, we've had to do some requests like "no male CNA's", but to me that's to be expected when dealing with some elderly female residents. But I don't want anyone to think that I condone racist behavior. As I said before, it all depends on what the situation is, and we don't know what the situation was at Abington, and therefore shouldn't slam the nurses or say they should've done X,Y,Z.

MultipurposeRN · Jul 1, 2004

The situation was difficult, but when it comes down to it, I think we have to accommodate patient requests as much as possible. This is a case where the African-American (I hate that phrase, why can't they just be American? most haven't been from Africa for many generations.) need to back off and understand that things can't always be the way they want, or demand. Many, many times husbands will request no males to attend a wife having a baby..I've had female patients request a female nurse for foley insertions, and vice-versa...and the OR in one hosptial I work in always accommodated all female staff requests for women in surgery as much as possible. That's discriminatory, to say the least..just talk to any man who's wanted to work OB as a nurse and not a doctor..but how can you force a patient to have someone they are uncomfortable with? You can't. Racism sucks, of course..so does genderism, age-ism, and lots of other isms. You won't change someone's mind by forcing things on them. IMO, the superviser did the right thing and the hospital should've backed them 100%. The Staff who were offended needed to direct their anger appropriately toward the person who made the request, and not toward the hospital or superviser. And they should try harder not to make the situation worse for the Superviser, because that is of no help at all. In fact, they should appreciate that the Super was trying to buffer them from a potentially volatile situation.

I had occasion to tell a Nurse's Aide not to go in a patient's room who was confused, combative, and hurling racial slurs, and complaining about N*****s in his room. I was embarrassed and humiliated that I had to tell her such a thing, but I was more concerned for her safety than anything. She was grateful for the warning, and that was that.

MultipurposeRN · Jul 1, 2004

The situation was difficult, but when it comes down to it, I think we have to accommodate patient requests as much as possible. This is a case where the African-American (I hate that phrase, why can't they just be American? most haven't been from Africa for many generations.) need to back off and understand that things can't always be the way they want, or demand. Many, many times husbands will request no males to attend a wife having a baby..I've had female patients request a female nurse for foley insertions, and vice-versa...and the OR in one hosptial I work in always accommodated all female staff requests for women in surgery as much as possible. That's discriminatory, to say the least..just talk to any man who's wanted to work OB as a nurse and not a doctor..but how can you force a patient to have someone they are uncomfortable with? You can't. Racism sucks, of course..so does genderism, age-ism, and lots of other isms. You won't change someone's mind by forcing things on them. IMO, the superviser did the right thing and the hospital should've backed them 100%. The Staff who were offended needed to direct their anger appropriately toward the person who made the request, and not toward the hospital or superviser. And they should try harder not to make the situation worse for the Superviser, because that is of no help at all. In fact, they should appreciate that the Super was trying to buffer them from a potentially volatile situation.

I had occasion to tell a Nurse's Aide not to go in a patient's room who was confused, combative, and hurling racial slurs, and complaining about N*****s in his room. I was embarrassed and humiliated that I had to tell her such a thing, but I was more concerned for her safety than anything. She was grateful for the warning, and that was that.

mishmisha · Jul 7, 2004

i just wonder what kind of support nurses of color have around these issues? as a person of african descent (by the way, using the term american only doesn't work for some folks because they are not seen as equal b/c of their skin so no use in pretending. racism is still very alive. it's also about honoring our roots. ESP if you were stolen and enslaved, it makes it more important), it's very traumatizing to experience racism so blatant. how supportive are nurses of each other if the adminstration doesn't provide it? i am a nursing student and think about these issues often...

leslie :-D · Jul 7, 2004

mishmisha said:

I just wonder what kind of support nurses of color have around these issues? As a person of African descent (by the way, using the term american only doesn't work for some folks because they are not seen as equal b/c of their skin so no use in pretending. Racism is still very alive. it's also about honoring our roots. ESP if you were stolen and enslaved, it makes it more important), it's very traumatizing to experience racism so blatant. How supportive are nurses of each other if the administration doesn't provide it? I am a nursing student and think about these issues often...

Discrimination in the workplace is illegal so shouldn't be a big issue. When it comes to patients however, you're going to be the recipient of discriminatory offenses because of your age, gender, skin color, hair color...you name it. So those issues are not so black and white.