Do Hospitals Inside Your Community Practice Racial Discrimination Its Not A Farfetched Question

In 2013 in one of the most progressive counties inside the State of Florida, it really is an "open secret" that racial and religious discrimination is practiced in a lot of if not most region hospitals. Seems tough to think, but when black or other minority hospital personnel report discrimination to management, they uncover that a quiet, unpublicized policy enabling racial and religious discrimination exists. The policy is often identified in what officials bonuses  contact a "hospital-wide directive."

"How could this be," you might wonder? Picture a sign on a bassinet within the delivery room that reads: "No African American nurses to care for infant, per dad's request."

Paradoxically, this discrimination is justified as part of "patient rights."

A front-page story about hospital discrimination created to guard patient rights quoted administrators who defended the policy as needed "to effectively care for sufferers." A black nurse, removed from a patient's care, asked, "what about my rights?" The answer is her rights were subordinated by the administration of the hospital as a way to go as well as bigots who demanded that no black folks take part in their care or treatment.

I discovered this amazing. In Mississippi or Alabama, I could think it. Maybe Georgia, South Carolina or Texas-sure, this could occur. But Florida? Pinellas County? Quelle horror!

It brings to mind a comment by the late Christopher Hitchens in Hitch-22: A Memoir: "The 1 factor that the racist can under no circumstances handle is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition."

How is it that some hospitals in Florida have unwritten policies that guard the rights of bigots to engage in racial discrimination or for reasons related with religious beliefs? I am not creating this up- you'll be able to study the story of such "rights" in an report by Weston Phippen. The piece is entitled, "Hospitals Balance a Patient's Request with a Fair Workplace" in the Tampa Bay Occasions of November ten, 2013.

One particular black nurse unwilling to subordinate her rights to those of a bigoted white patient filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination inside the District Court in Tampa. Ms. Syrenthia Dysart claimed that at Palms of Pasadena Hospital of St. Petersburg, an "open secret" directive violated her correct to a discrimination-free workplace. The case is pending. In Michigan, a equivalent case was settled out of court-after the hospital officials apologized, pledged to end the practice and paid the nurse $200,000.

Even though individuals do have rights, which include to refuse medical care, to informed consent and to refuse care for whatever reason, the hospital plus the employees who work there have rights, too. A law professor cited inside the Times story stated that if a patient puts an undue burden around the hospital, the facility can advise a patient that it truly is unable to accommodate a discriminatory request. It can then arrange for the patient's transfer to one more facility, when the patient is in a position to be moved.

In a nationwide survey of 127 doctors by the University of Chicago, 20 percent reported getting encountered "race - or religion - related demands from patients. Some studies discovered that accommodating racial prejudices is usually helpful to bigoted patients. A 2003 study cited in the Times account "showed that when a patient and doctor are on the exact same race, on typical the visits had been greater than two minutes longer and the patient was more satisfied using the care."