# Craven Hospital Admins cave to racist's that only whites treat his pregnant wife! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 4, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468 "2003-10-04T00:53:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/1 "2003-10-04T00:53:10Z")
Well we know what the hamsters thought of _this_ thread!! ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/2 "2003-10-04T01:10:17Z")
Incredible, but true. From the Philadelphia Inquirer [Why a local hospital gave in to a racist demand Supervisors said they sought only to avoid a confrontation.](http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/6919504.htm) > [@](#): > > For several days in early September, supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital 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. > > Despite a hospital policy stating that “care will be provided on a nondiscriminatory basis,” maternity ward staffers accommodated the man’s wishes. > > The decision offended many employees and prompted hospital president Richard L. Jones Jr. to issue a statement calling the situation “morally reprehensible.” > > Hospital vice president Meg McGoldrick said the problems began when a pregnant woman’s husband insisted that only white employees could enter his wife’s room. > > “The staff informed our African American employees that there was a volatile situation, and they suggested that they not interact with the family,” she said. “In some cases, they actually told employees that they probably ought not to go into the room.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/3 "2003-10-04T01:25:08Z")
The only thing I can think of is that the woman was in a very agitated state, and if she started making a fuss, her health would be in danger? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/4 "2003-10-04T01:31:16Z")
am somewhat torn over this. But if the guy is paying for this, and it’s a non-emergency situation, i have to say the guy has the right to screen the staff that will be tending to his wife (assuming she agrees). ---
**Author:** ![robinh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@robinh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinh)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/5 "2003-10-04T01:49:33Z")
_For several days in early September, supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital 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._ The key words there would be “for several days”. I can see a situation where this has never before come up; they are dealing with a severely agitated woman; they want to keep her calm enough to have her baby without unnecessary intervention. I would also expect that, after that one incident, the hospital spell it out very clearly to potential patients. If you don’t like our staff, don’t have your baby here. However, it seems (from the above description) that she not only had her baby, but took the next couple days to recover in this hospital. And they continued to give in to their racist demands. That is shameful. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/6 "2003-10-04T01:52:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kanicbird \* > \*\*am somewhat torn over this. But if the guy is paying for this, and it’s a non-emergency situation, i have to say the guy has the right to screen the staff that will be tending to his wife (assuming she agrees). \*\* He has the right to request it. The hospital is under no obligation to agree and should have thrown him out of their establishment and asked his wife if she’d like the care the hospital was offering to give or if she’d like to leave too. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/7 "2003-10-04T03:23:06Z")
I’m with **manhattan**. And I’m also glad I don’t have to pay to have a baby. And I’m glad that no one else in Canada does either, which means that they don’t have the cash-given right to make silly demands like this. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/8 "2003-10-04T04:05:30Z")
kung fu lola, 1. A lot of hospital care here in Canada is user pay. 2. You certainly have the right to make any demand you want. The problem is not the demand that was made, it was that the hospital agreed to it. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/9 "2003-10-04T04:14:27Z")
Point taken. I was just miffed that **kanicbird** found a semi-coherent argument in defense of this yahoos actions. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/10 "2003-10-04T05:50:31Z")
No one would be complaining if his wife had requested that only women be involved with the pregnancy. This request is made pretty often. A doctor was recently cautioned by the College for allegedly ignoring this request. I don’t see this as that different, even if it is distasteful. That being said, I would not honour this request, and would tell the man that his wife’s safety would depend on having the usual staff there. Nevetheless, there is something to be said about avoiding confrontation in hospitals. If you were a black nurse on the OB-GYN ward, you would probably want nothing to do with this patient. And medical staff do take a lot of abuse from patients. Personally, I’d tell the guy off. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/11 "2003-10-04T05:57:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robinh \* > \*\*_For several days in early September, supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital 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._ > > The key words there would be “for several days”. > > I can see a situation where this has never before come up; they are dealing with a severely agitated woman; they want to keep her calm enough to have her baby without unnecessary intervention. > > I would also expect that, after that one incident, the hospital spell it out very clearly to potential patients. If you don’t like our staff, don’t have your baby here. > > However, it seems (from the above description) that she not only had her baby, but took the next couple days to recover in this hospital. And they continued to give in to their racist demands. That is shameful. \*\* I don’t think that’s what it means. To me it sounds like she was admitted for several days _before_ giving birth, probably due to complications, or they would have said something like " man ordered that no blacks assist in the delivery **and care** of his child." ---
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/12 "2003-10-04T06:35:33Z")
Well, on the one hand, were I hospital admin, if it was actually during the birth and too late to transfer her to another hospital, I’d have asked my black employees to stay out of the room too. No way in hell I’d allow them to be subjected to abuse or possible violence, which I don’t think in that situation is entirely outside the realm of possibilities, and I’d have no right to ask them to subject themselves to it. Then of course, I’d immediately excuse myself once the situation was at least under control, call the cops and have them standing by to get her, her husband, and their little bundle of hate by-product the hell out of my hospital the second both mom and tot were assured of being stable, so as to not subject the hospital or staff to a potential negligence lawsuit. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/13 "2003-10-04T06:56:17Z")
Perhaps they should deny this brain dead waste of human skin any type of blood transfusion should he or his family need it also. After all, the process of storing plasma for use in medical procedures was perfected by Dr. Charles Drew, a black man. [sarcasm]Obviously, since a nigger couldn’t make any worthwile contrubutions to medical treatement, we shouldn’t subject this man and his family to it. [/sarcasm] What saddens me the most is that a newborn, innocent person is most likely going to be poisoned by this asshat’s vile beliefs. Like they said in “Parenthood”: > [@](#): > > you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/14 "2003-10-04T07:35:34Z")
I hope the hospital charged them the full cost of their ridiculous demands. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/15 "2003-10-04T07:38:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kanicbird \* > \*\*am somewhat torn over this. But if the guy is paying for this, and it’s a non-emergency situation, i have to say the guy has the right to screen the staff that will be tending to his wife (assuming she agrees). \*\* Would the hospital have the right to say: well, as many of our staff are black, in order to meet your demands , and provide the correct level of care, we are going to have to make special staffing arrangements which will cost…oh, xxxx$ extra per day. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/16 "2003-10-04T10:09:07Z")
I once worked in the appointment center for a large medical insurer and hospital in Orange County, California. Sadly, there are bigots of one kind or another everywhere. I heard requests by newly insured people that the doctor assigned to them not be: black, Hispanic, Indian (Asian), Chinese, female…you get the idea. I asked my supervisor about it and she told me the policy was to give the insured what they want. It’s just an economic fact of life that the customer is right, even if he is a stinking bigot. The man in the OP was an asshole to demand that no blacks be involved in his wife’s care, but the hospital was correct in acceding to his demands. Since blood and blood products are only catagorized by blood type and Rh factor (as far as I know), I wonder what Kluxer types do when they need a transfusion. Maybe they refuse it and just die. That’d be good. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Blassie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@Blassie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blassie)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/17 "2003-10-04T10:43:58Z")
I didn’t know Marta Limbaugh had a baby! Cigars all around! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/18 "2003-10-04T15:32:01Z")
It’s horrible, but if they _hadn’t_ given in to his demands, the employees would have been at risk for verbal abuse and possibly physical violence. I don’t think the hospital had a choice. Hope they made him pay through the nose. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/19 "2003-10-04T16:29:44Z")
- - - What if it had been a Jew who requested “no Muslims”? Or a woman as noted, who requested “no men”? Are some types of prejudice more acceptable than others? Is a religious prejudice more acceptable than a simple social one? ~ ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468/20 "2003-10-04T16:45:18Z")
He’s the customer, and if his request can be reasonably granted, they should grant it. Just because it’s completely brainless bigotry means nothing. Are all requests made by customers always intelligent? Sometimes that’s the price of doing business. Of course, then the care of the patient is compromised, since now the people caring for her are not chosen by capability, but on skin color. But he chose this situation, not them. So it’s his fault if she doesn’t get the best care possible, and I hope would lose badly if he tried to sue for medical malpractice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/craven-hospital-admins-cave-to-racists-that-only-whites-treat-his-pregnant-wife/205468.md?page=2)