NEWS
Work Place Discrimination: "In one of the latest incidents, GRAND RAPIDS, MI has reported a case in which a black nurse has sued Spectrum Health System as she claimed that officials had accepted a white patient’s request for no black caregivers.
Michelle Acklen, who was working for Spectrum Health through Cross Country Staffing, said she was re-assigned to patients on numerous occasions until her ...assignment ended in July.
In a lawsuit which was filed in the U.S. District Court, attorney Julie Gafkay said that Acklen felt harassed and humiliated because of the segregation of her duties and discriminated against as she was unable to perform her nursing responsibilities because of her race. Furthermore, her reputation has suffered damage.
According to Gafkay, Acklen, who lives in Tennessee, worked at Spectrum Health Rehab and Nursing Centre on Fuller Avenue NE and had been placed by the staffing agency in early October 2016. Having been assigned to Spectrum Health, Acklen was required to follow its practices and to report to Spectrum Health supervisors, and as such, she was treated as a Spectrum Health worker.
The debacle had started in March when a supervisor told Acklen that a certain patient no longer wanted black caregivers or nurses. According to Acklen, the patient’s request was granted. It was noted in the lawsuit that when she was assigned to the patient’s floor, she had to change patients with a white nurse." - author unknown
Michelle Acklen, who was working for Spectrum Health through Cross Country Staffing, said she was re-assigned to patients on numerous occasions until her ...assignment ended in July.
In a lawsuit which was filed in the U.S. District Court, attorney Julie Gafkay said that Acklen felt harassed and humiliated because of the segregation of her duties and discriminated against as she was unable to perform her nursing responsibilities because of her race. Furthermore, her reputation has suffered damage.
According to Gafkay, Acklen, who lives in Tennessee, worked at Spectrum Health Rehab and Nursing Centre on Fuller Avenue NE and had been placed by the staffing agency in early October 2016. Having been assigned to Spectrum Health, Acklen was required to follow its practices and to report to Spectrum Health supervisors, and as such, she was treated as a Spectrum Health worker.
The debacle had started in March when a supervisor told Acklen that a certain patient no longer wanted black caregivers or nurses. According to Acklen, the patient’s request was granted. It was noted in the lawsuit that when she was assigned to the patient’s floor, she had to change patients with a white nurse." - author unknown
Response
She needs stronger skin. Suing, I feel, is a weak reaction. It is not unreasonable this request. It is better to be clear with what you and your person in the hospital wants and needs to recover and ask for it. Everything is negotiable.
I asked for my mother to be treated like a white woman when she was in the hospital in her last months. I demanded it in such a way the head nurse had to adjust herself and meet my command. I had to make similar demands for my Grandfather-teacher when he was in a hospital. He did not want Nigerian nurses with skills in the dark arts over his body. I demand and insist upon being cared for exclusively by Black women physicians and Black nurses with a healing touch. Being offended and suing is weak, and not my concern in the serious business of caring for a loved one in the hospital.
It is very much like a person in a hospital insisting upon his sacred items be present in his or her room.
One needs to be able to negotiate. Sometimes those requests cannot be met and adjustments have to be made on everybody's part. I finally had to have two white doctors, both of whom were instrumental in keeping me alive. The first one became close to me as a friend for a lot of years.
In a country rooted in slavery, bondage of the soul, the axiom of war and the contradictions of racial superiority favored by white Americans a person of color needs a better thinking process! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10/31/17
