Review the case study \"No African Americans Allowed -- White Patient\'s Racism

Question

Review the case study "No African Americans Allowed -- White Patient's Racism Rules at Pennsylvanian Hospital" in chapter 13 of the textbook. What rights does the patient have in such a situation? Consider what effects might be the result of ignoring the patient's request. As a leader of the organization, how would you handle such a situation?

CASE: No African Americans Allowed—White Patient’sRacism Rules at Pennsylvanian HospitalAfrican American workers at a major Pennsylvania Hospital were out-raged when told they were not to enter the room of a white patient.Supervisors at the nationally recognized hospital told its AfricanAmerican healthcare professionals, as well as food service and house-keeping staff, not to enter the patient’s room or interact with the family.Administrators said they broke hospital policy to avoid a potentially“volatile situation” by adhering to the request of the patient’s husband,that only white employees enter his wife’s room on the maternity ward.“We were wrong,” said a vice president at Abington Memorial Hospital.“Weshould have followed our policy.The whole incident has greatly up-set many of our employees who perceived that we wereacquiescing tothe family’s wishes.’’Despite the hospital’spolicy that states “carewill be provided on anondiscriminatorybasis,” it seems as though patients areallowed todiscriminate.Catholic Health CareWest’smedical ethicist said the hospital failedin its responsibility to its employees and the community in order to ac-commodate a patient’s racial preference.“This was a fundamental disrespect of these professionals’ skills andtheir fundamental dignities . . . a hospital needs to stand against this un-dercurrent of racism in our society.”The Philadelphia office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) saidthat prohibiting African American employees from carrying out the fullscope of their duties is reprehensible.“I don’tsee why and how a hospital could justify accommodating arequest that the professionals attending to a patient be of a particularbackground,” said BarryMorrison, director of the Philadelphia chapterof the ADL. “Certainly, it’s demoralizing for the people who work there.”The American Hospital Association (AHA) acknowledged there havebeen several similar instances its staff knows about and that there are nofixed industry guidelines for hospitals to follow when such a request is made.With nearly 5000 hospitals as members, the Chicago-based AHA isthe largest hospital association in the United States. It would not offerhospitals a suggestion as to how to address that situation.The supervisors at Abington Memorial were acting with good inten-tions and sought to deflect any confrontation between its African Americanstaff and the white family. There was no incident reported during thewoman’s stay. Since then, the hospital’s president sent a letter to all its employeesand volunteers apologizing for the situation, which he termed “morallyreprehensible.”In addition to creating a diversity task force at the 508-bed hospital,which is located in Abington and services patients from Philadelphiaand the surrounding primarily white suburbs in Bucks and Montgomerycounties, it has hired consultants, and the hospital is revising its anti-discrimination policy.Earlier in the year, the AHA bestowed upon the hospital the “Questfor Quality” award for raising awareness of the need for an organizationalcommitment to patient safety and quality.AHA said hospitals are constantly evaluating how to provide the besttreatment for their patients, while protecting and maintaining the dignityof its employees. They also said that a hospital’s constant patient turnoversometimes subjected workers to society’sunderbelly.Question to ponder: How do culture, values, and ethics come intoplay in this case? If you were the leader of this organization, how wouldyou handle this situation?References1.Schein E. Organizational Cultureand Leadership.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1985.2.HooijbergR, Petrock F.On cultural change: Using competing values frame-work to help leaders execute and transformational strategy. Hum ResourManage.1993;32(1):29–50.3.Mintzberg H. The Nature of Managerial WorkEnglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1980.4.Schein E. Organizational Cultureand Leadership(2nd ed.). San Francisco,CA: Jossey-Bass; 1992.5.Tagiuri R., Litwin G. (eds.). Organizational Climate: Explorations of aConcept.Boston, MA: Harvard Business School; 1968.6.Ashforth B. Climate formation: Issues and extensions. Acad Manage Rev.1985;10:837–847.7.Halpin A, Croft D. The Organizational Climate of Schools(Contract No.SAE 543-8639). August. Washington, DC: U.S. Office of Education; 1962.8.Poole D. Future of public and private partnerships in the human services.In D Austin, Z Hasenfeld (eds.). Special Issue on the Future of HumanServices. JAppl Behav Sci.1985;21:393–406.9.Reichers AE, Schneider B. Climate and culture: An evolution of constructs.In Schneider B. (ed.) Organizational Climate and Culture.San Fransico, CA:Jossey-Bass; 1990.10.Denison DR. Corporate Cultureand Organizational Effectiveness.NewYork: John Wiley & Sons; 1990.11.Lewin K. Field Theory in Social Science.New York: Harper & Row; 1951.252CHAPTER13CULTUREVALUES

Explanation / Answer

What rights does the patient have in such a situation? Consider what effects might be the result of ignoring the patient's request. As a leader of the organization, how would you handle such a situation?

“We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” This is a slogan that has been seen at many places. The civil rights act of 1964 says that private acts are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of colour, religion or race or national origin. This law is exempt for religious institutions such as church. So, whatever be the case, a person cannot refuse services on the basis of their ethnicity. So, the patients do not have the right To refuse services from any employee. The hospital should not promote any such requests put forth by patients and deny such requests in the name of discrimination. The patient might get offended, but in the name of law we can deny such requests. Moreover, they might spread ill name for my hospital and that might affect the goodwill of the hospital.

In such a situation, keeping the employees dignity intact, we can request and explain the patient family that our institution does not promote any such requests and doing so would break the law. We need to negotiate and explain the patient that such practices shouldn't be encouraged by them as well.

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