No Black nurses lawsuit: Nurse sues hospital after they honor racial request

No Black nurses lawsuit: Nurse sues hospital after they honor racial request

     No Black nurses lawsuit. According to an article posted at USA Today, a nurse filed a lawsuit against the hospital she works for after they honored a request from a father that “no Black nurses” care for his baby.

     The article, which was posted earlier, says Tonya Battle filed the lawsuit after the hospital put a note on the assignment clipboard which read: “No African American nurse to take care of baby.”

     The veteran registered nurse was working at Hurley Medical Center in Flint in the neonatal intensive care unit on Oct. 31, 2012 when she says the infant’s father told her supervisor that no African-American nurses were to care for his child. Battle says the supervisor passed the request on to her boss. Soon after, Battle says she was reassigned.

     The hospital removed the sign, but Battle says she, and other Black nurses, were barred from caring for the child for nearly a month “because of their race.” Other statements in the lawsuit claim the infant’s father “pulled up his sleeve and showed some type of tattoo which was believed to be a swastika of some kind.”

     Battle says she was “shocked, offended, and in disbelief that she was so egregiously discriminated against based on her race and reassigned,” says the lawsuit, which demands punitive damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation and damages to her reputation.

     Julie Gafkay, Battle’s attor ney, says “I don’t doubt that people have made requests like this in the past. You’re not going to control the prejudices and biases of people. That’s not my client’s issue. The problem she has … is that her employer of 25 years granted (the request).”

     What are your thoughts on this father who requested that “no Black nurses” care for his child? Email us at: wgazette@thewestsidegazette.com