Need help solving this Legal/Ethical challenge Swastikas and Neonatal Care This
ID: 3455329 • Letter: N
Question
Need help solving this Legal/Ethical challenge
Swastikas and Neonatal Care
This case describes an incident that occurred at Hurley Medical Center in Michigan and resulted in a lawsuit. Tonya Battle, a veteran black nurse in Hurley’s neonatal
intensive care unit, was taking care of a baby when a man with a swastika tattoo walked into the unit and reached for the baby. Battle stopped him and asked to see the hospital wristband that identified him as the baby’s parent. “He abruptly told her he wanted to see her supervisor, who then advised Battle she should no longer care for the child,” according to USA Today. The man had requested that no African American nurses should take care of his child.
A note was subsequently put on the assignment clipboard saying, “No African American nurse to take care of baby.” Battle was “shocked, offended, and in disbelief that she was so egregiously discriminated against based on her race and reassigned, according to the lawsuit, which asks for punitive damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation, and damages to her reputation,” according to a reporter from the Arizona Republic. Battle could not understand why the hospital would accommodate the man’s
request. Although the note was later removed, black nurses were not allowed to care for the child for about a month.
The Arizona Republic newspaper reported that the “American Medical Association’s ethics code bars doctors from refusing to treat people based on race, gender, and other criteria, but there are no specific policies for handling race-based requests from patients.” Further, a survey of “emergency physicians found patients often make such requests, and they are routinely accommodated. A third of doctors who responded said they felt patients perceive better care from providers of shared demographics, with racial matches considered more important than gender or religion.
Your Views
What would you have done if you were a medical administrator at the time the request was made?
1. I would not have honored the man’s request.
I would have explained why Tonya Battle and other African American nurses are best suited to take care of his child.
2. I would have done exactly what the hospital did. The man has a right to have his child taken care of by someone of a race or gender of his
choosing.
What would you do about the lawsuit?
1. Fight it. It’s ridiculous that someone would feel emotional stress and humiliation from simply being reassigned.
2. Settle it and create a policy that prohibits honoring future requests like this.
3. Settle it but hold a hospitalwide meeting explaining the rationale for continuing to accommodate such requests.
Explanation / Answer
1. I would not have honored the man’s request.
I would have explained why Tonya Battle and other African American nurses are best suited to take care of his child.
When a nurse is taking care of a baby in the NICU department , she is trained well. For taking care of babies, the protocols are the same, and a particular race or ethnicity does not change the standard protocols of taking care of babies. In fact, any such requests if allowed, would only promote bias and racial discrimination and hence, it should not be allowed. Rather, the way that the parent treated the nurse was highly derogatory. The hospital should be explaining them that such practices would not be followed in their hospital. If it was a genuine problem, says as problems in language or communication, it would have been more sensible to address it, but here, the management should take a step forward and protect their employee.
2. Settle it and create a policy that prohibits honoring future requests like this.
It makes sensible that the nurse would feel emotional stress when being reassigned, since, the major part of nursing is through the emotions and the empathy that the nurses have towards a patient. It is incorrect that such requests would be made sheerly on the basis of prejudice. Hence, I would prohibit honouring such requests and make a hospital wide policy about it.