Nurse Who Was Told Not to Touch White Baby
- Lawsuit says a notation was placed on the newborn%27s intendance chart
- The incident took identify on Oct. 31
- Nurse%27s attorney said she doesn%27t doubt similar requests have been made in the past
Flintstone, Mich. -- An African-American nurse who is suing a Michigan hospital considering she said information technology agreed to a human's request that no African-American nurses treat his newborn recalled Monday that she was stunned past her employer'due south actions.
"I didn't fifty-fifty know how to react," said Tonya Battle, 49, a veteran of the neonatal intensive intendance unit and a nearly 25-year employee of the Hurley Medical Heart in Flint.
Battle's lawsuit states a annotation was posted on the assignment clipboard reading "No African American nurse to take care of baby," according to the eight-page complaint against the medical center.
Hurley, which according to its website was founded in 1908 and is a 443-bed educational activity infirmary, released a brief statement Mon, saying that it "does not annotate on past or current litigation."
Battle said she was working as a registered nurse in Hurley's neonatal intensive care unit Oct. 31, when a man walked into the NICU, where Battle was at an infant's bedside. He reached toward the child, according to the lawsuit filed in Genesee County (Mich.) Circuit Courtroom last month.
"I introduced myself to him. 'Hi, I'chiliad Tonya and I'm taking care of your infant. Can I come across your (identification) band?,' " Battle said, referring to the infirmary-issued identification used to identify infants' parents. "And he said in return, 'And I demand to see your supervisor.' "
Perplexed by his curtness, she asked for the charge nurse, who spoke separately to the man.
When the charge nurse returned, she told Battle that the father didn't want African Americans to care for his child. Farther, the charge nurse told Battle that he had rolled up his sleeve to betrayal what appeared to be a swastika.
"I felt like I froze," Battle said. "I merely was really dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that's why he was so angry (and) that's why he was requesting my charge nurse. I think my rima oris hit the flooring. It was really disbelief."
The charge nurse passed the request to her supervisor, and Battle was reassigned, co-ordinate to the complaint.
Even afterwards hospital officials removed the sign that had been placed for a curt time on the assignment nautical chart, Battle and other black nurses were not assigned to care for the baby for most a calendar month "because of their race," according to the lawsuit. Battle is seeking punitive damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation and damage to her reputation.
Battle said colleagues have told her they were surprised at the hospital's stand up and they have been supportive. Merely she said she felt the issue was important enough to pursue the affair legally because she expected Hurley to take turned down such a request.
"What flashed in my mind is, 'What'due south next? A annotation on the water fountain that says 'No blacks?' Or a note on the bathroom that says 'No blacks'?" she said.
Larry Dubin, a police professor at University of Detroit Mercy School of Police, chosen the hospital'southward deportment, if true, "morally repugnant."
"The patient's father has the right to select the infirmary to treat the child. The father does not take the correct to practice control over the hospital in discrimination of its employees," he said.
The case "puts into tension ii different facets of the law," said Lance Gable, an associate professor specializing in health law at Wayne Country University Police force Schoolhouse.
Patients choose their doctors, he said. Some women adopt to see female gynecologists, for example.
"Merely there are also laws prohibiting bigotry," he added, citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, among others.
"The lesser line is that the constabulary is not clear nearly this, although I suspect the nurse will have a pretty strong case," Gable said.
I in three doctors in a 2007 survey said they felt patients believed they got better intendance if they matched their doctor'due south race. Patients' requests were more probable to be honored if the request came from someone who was female, not-white or Muslim, according to a report on the survey written in function by a University of Michigan researcher.
Just just how often hospitals receive requests based on race is unclear.
Vickie Winn, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital of Michigan, said the infirmary may try to accommodate a patient's request for providers with a certain faith or gender, but a request for a doctor based on race is different, she said.
"Information technology has come up in the by, but generally speaking, we don't arrange that. ... We have a very various population, and we but don't feed into those kinds of behavior," Winn said.
Julie Gafkay, an employment bigotry and civil rights lawyer in Frankenmuth, Mich., who is representing Battle, said medical personnel might receive such requests from time to time, but employers must guard against racial bigotry.
"I don't doubt that people take made requests like this in the by. Y'all're not going to control the prejudices and biases of people. That'due south not my client's effect. The problem she has ... is that her employer of 25 years granted" the request.
She added: "We made a decision in this state that that kind of bigotry is wrong."
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/18/black-nurse-lawsuit-father-request-granted/1928253/
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