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)
Most of the time ignorant people like this are raised this way by their ignorant mothers, fathers, cousins, uncles and so forth. So by the time these type of people reach adulthood, its too late.
SO...... This is to the new moms and dads..........
Raise your children WELL. Teach them to accept people of all colors. Respect others as you would want the same respect .
We are all individuals with something unique in all of us.
This might be because I am in Canada, but I don't believe that the patient is the customer. This is not a hotel or a restaurant. I am not a servant, I am not there just to make my customer happy. We are there to provide them with the best medical care we can, not to coddle them and meet ridiculous demands. If you want to handpick pick all your health care providers, you need to go elsewhere. If you let patients demand to decide who will work with them, where does it end? What if you don't have enough white women to look after them that day? What if us white women don't want to be stuck looking after all the biggots all the time?
HERE HERE...Talk that talk!
I came into nursing, when patients were called patients, and I will never think of them as a customer. In fact that term grates against my last nerve!
Hmmmm....I was born at the hospital where I currently work 52 years ago this coming November. I was born the year they stopped segregation of infants and patients. One of my older sisters (born almost two years before me) was accidentally placed in the "white nursery" and was reported "missing from the black nursery". To the hospital's dismay, my "missing sister" was found in the white nursery. I wonder if they scrubbed down the nursery after she was quickly whisked from the nursery and sent back to the black nursery. :rotfl: Boyyyy....if I could have been a fly on the wall........if walls could only talk, what would my fly ears have heard.
Sad to say but there is STILL racism at that same hospital! They've not come far from where they were "human relations" wise in 52 years.
I wonder how I was treated since segregation at that hospital had just stopped not long before I was born. Sad indeed!
I've encountered racism as a patient and as a nurse caring for patients. I've had patients who did not want me to care for them, and I had a black family who did not want white nurses caring for their son who was the patient. Neither time were their wishes honored. They had to simply deal with their prejudices because the nurse managers or charge nurses would NOT give in to their wishes which I think was a GOOD THING!
I do NOT agree with racism being tolerated in any public facility, including hospitals that are public.
I like jnette's thinking in her posts above. Tell them to go elsewhere if they do not like the service being offered by the staff who works there, and don't let the door hit 'em where the sun refuses to shine.
Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
Quote
Originally posted by Brownms46
I came into nursing, when patients were called patients, and I will never think of them as a customer. In fact that term grates against my last nerve!
I did to-but the times they are a -changin. Patients are way more educated these days about their rights within the system and their bodies.They like to think that they are in charge of their health care team.Things are so competitive in the hospitals in this area that they'll stand on their heads to provide good customer service.And that IS what we do to a certain extent-and if a patient does not like the care they receive at your hospital they can just go down the road to the next one...If enough of your patients do that the next thing you know the hospital is in the red by 4 million dollars and laying off staff....Of course the administration has to support the nursing dept and make sure the staff are getting a great salary and bennies so they can retain enough nurses to do the little extras that really make a difference to a patient and their family.
...........Of course the administration has to support the nursing dept and make sure the staff are getting a great salary and bennies so they can retain enough nurses to do the little extras that really make a difference to a patient and their family.
Ummm...can you please tell us where we can find such a hospital to work at? I'm in the market for such a place. ?
I once had a 42 year old male nurse refuse to help me change out of a shirt and bra into a gown, while attached to an i.v pump. He said Can a nurse refuse to help/treat a pt like that? Maybe he'd been sued or something in the past? This was last year. I was 26. Ever hear of this?
z's playa....can't say I blame that nurse for refusing to do something he.......no doubt........was telling you he couldn't handle. You should have thanked him for his honesty, then asked him to send in a nurse assistant or another nurse to help you undress. We shouldn't fault a person for being honest enough to state their limits, and that young man certainly knew his limits. If more of us were honest in situations like that, we'd be far better off....IMHPO. :)
It is sad that the racists are breeding. unfortunately the new baby will be brought up to hate.
I also think that it I sad that the other staff at the hospital did not make a stand by refusing to care for the racist patient. Can you imagine the headlines: Nurse refuses to care for racist who refused care from black staff.
Every day I read on these boards how supervisors put staff in impossible situations and then write them up when things go wrong. Now for the first time they were caught between a rock and a hard place. I do not have sympathy for them nor would I back them up. They should be punished. perhaps BON?
I hae been in the reverse position of being told a black family only wanted black nurses taking care of the patient. I said fine and later when I saw the wife and daughter in the hall I spoke to them and told them that if there was any help needed with their loved one I would be glad to help. They looked surprised and thanked me. Later that week, the daughter came looking for me, seems that the patient needed an IV and the nurse could not get one in. I evaluated the situation and inserted a 20g intercath . I just acted like I did not know what the family had said. Later when the patient was readmitted for other problems, I always took care of him . He has passed on now, but the family was very nice to me. I learned later that they had a bad experience with a white night nurse . SO I guess the supervisor just handled the situation as best she/he could at the time. I agree that an aggressive approach is needed in the future. Sometimes we just have to pray for God to deal with people who have these attitudes.
So you are saying that a patient should not have the right to refuse to be cared for by a nurse whom makes them un-comfortable? We have debated this on the board at length. Patients can find any number of reasons to refuse care from nursing staff...When is it acceptable? When the patient is offended by one's sex or sexual orientation? Men are entering labor and delivery-does a patient have the right to refuse a male nurse in that setting? Can an elderly woman refuse care from a male aide or nurse? What about a younger female patient?Would you be willing if you were black to take care of the skinhead and possibly be put in a situation in which your license could be jeopardized? I feel that if I am a consumer of a service and it is not making me comfortable then I have the right to ask for an alternative-just as I have the right to choose a particular doctor. I hate racism and bigots of all kinds but I KNOW that people are NEVER going to change....If you take away one person's right to choose then you have to take away everyone's right-I am afraid that I am not making my point in a clear and concise manner.....argh. I can't think straight today...sorry
These are very complex points. When I was in nursing school, one of my classmates, nice Catholic girls right out of Catholic high school, said she'd refuse to care for a patient who had an abortion. She didn't mean assisting in the process, she meant if the patient came in bleeding, or infected post-procedure. She would just refuse her care. Another one said that gays "grossed her out" and she couldn't imagine taking care of a gay man. She was joined by one or two others in her views. Yes, this occurred during this century, in a modern university setting, one of the NLN top rated schools.
When I worked in Florida, there was a great deal of friction between the Cuban and West Indian nurses in one facility. Many of the patient families demanded a Cuban nurse to care for their baby, and the hospital complied. It had nothing to do with the language, they all spoke very good English.
So how much do you accomodate requests, either from a patient or a nurse? Fortunately for me, the issue did not arise again once I left that Florida hospital. But while I never thought of a patient as customer or client, hospitals seem to be getting into that these days. Healthcare is a commodity that makes money, and they want return customers.
How far does one go to please the customer? That is the question. What will nurses and other staff tolerate?
Any patient has the right to refuse care. They also are then obligated to accept the ramifications of their refusal. If you refuse care because the assigned care giver is of color then you are refusing care, period. This is no different than signing out AMA. In this care the pt. had every right to refuse care, the hospital went wrong by making allowing alternate providers.
Theses are truly interesting posts and as a woman of color I am gratified that they are overwhelming running against the behavior of the racist and how this situation was handled.
The supervisors dropped the ball on this one and should be reprimanded. There was a written policy and they did not follow it. A more that gentle reminder is in order. In their defense they may have seen accommodating the racist demand as the way of least resistance but it was wrong. If the supervisors were not sure about what to do or what administration expects then a call to Administration should have been made. Believe me the administrators would have rather handled this problem on the front end and not have to deal with the damage control that is now going on. Abington has a good reputation and that is gold in a competitive heath care market.
. The supervisors owe a duty to their co-workers and subordinates. The employees at Abington should have been backed up in this situation. White staff should not have to be burdened with accommodating racist's demands. Judging from the response on this board White staff would not have been to comfortable dealing with this situation. The professionalism of the minority staff was called into question by the request and was given tacit agreement when the supervisors agreed to accommodate the request.
The racist comes and goes leaving a path of destruction in his wake, a mess for some one else to clean up. Abington administration is trying to make it right. I applaud them in their efforts. There is no place for racist behavior in the work place (or any where else.) The cost in productivity, job satisfaction and efficiency and again the reputation of the business are just too high to tolerate it.
They've not come far from where they were "human relations" wise in 52 years. 
Can a nurse refuse to help/treat a pt like that? Maybe he'd been sued or something in the past? This was last year. I was 26. Ever hear of this?
haveaniceday
4 Posts
Most of the time ignorant people like this are raised this way by their ignorant mothers, fathers, cousins, uncles and so forth. So by the time these type of people reach adulthood, its too late.
SO...... This is to the new moms and dads..........
Raise your children WELL. Teach them to accept people of all colors. Respect others as you would want the same respect .
We are all individuals with something unique in all of us.