White American Nurses Expose What Some Black Patients Go Through

[00:00:00]Now that I have you all here, after subjecting myself to public scrutiny and I have your attention, I want to talk to you about the black woman that was robbed of her dignity, respect, and compassion by a racist, soon to be former nurse.

[00:00:15]And if you look like me in any capacity, it is your obligation to know and understand what systemic racism is.

[00:00:23]racial disparities that do exist, such as black women dying at three times the rate of white women and their and including their babies. It's not enough to just be not racist. You need to be anti-racist. You need to be outspoken.

[00:00:39]You have the obligation to be outspoken and anti-racist because it is not a black person's job to explain their everyday lived experiences to you in which you will continually reject and deny. It is no longer you didn't know.

[00:00:54]It is no longer willful ignorance. It is racism. And I don't care if you like it or not. You cannot just treat your patients the same.

[00:01:06]That is racism. Treating your patients the same means black people die. They need to not only be cared for, but they need to leave feeling like they were respected and safe.

[00:01:20]And that's not happening.

[00:01:23]And people need to keep recording these incidents and posting them online. If that black mother was robbed of her dignity and respect and compassion, that racist nurse deserves none of it.

[00:01:39]And when in doubt, shut your mouth and listen to black women. Period.

[00:01:44]>> I cannot believe what I'm reading and I refuse to let this one go under the rug.

[00:01:49]So, this is a nurse in Virginia. She's 26 years old. Her name is Aaron Strawman. Now, she was just charged with malicious wounding and felony child abuse. She was intentionally breaking the bones of black newborns in the NICU.

[00:02:04]Now, these babies were already fragile.

[00:02:07]They're fighting for their lives in intensive care, and the mother's trusted staff to take care of their newborn children. and she betrayed that trust in the most horrific way imaginable. So, back in November, doctors discovered that three newborns had just unexplainable fractures. And this is not even her first time doing this cuz back in 2023, four babies in the same NICU had unexplained fractures as well. So, that's seven seven black babies with unexplained broken bones in the same NICU. And one baby in particular, this is Noah. Noah was born premature. So then the parents noticed that not only was his leg discolored, but then he just stopped moving his leg altogether. And when Noah got an X-ray, they showed that he had a fracture. And can you imagine the parents were so afraid to hold their own baby because they didn't want to be accused of child abuse. And one mother even lost her baby. And I just have so many questions. Why wasn't this caught sooner? Did you purposely get a job at the NICU? And how did this go on for over a year? And why aren't you getting charged with a hate crime? You targeted seven black babies, some of the most vulnerable lives in our community. And to make it clear, she was denied bond, but that's not enough. The family needs answers. The families deserve justice.

[00:03:26]And we not going to just let this one go.

[00:03:28]>> If you are someone who takes care of human beings in a healthcare environment, I need you to listen the hell up. I just watched another video of a black woman being dismissed in active labor and having a baby 8 minutes later.

[00:03:41]It is disgusting to watch, but finally people are paying attention. This is an article that was written two and a half years ago. I talked about how if you are a nurse who says [ __ ] like I'm color blind. I don't see color. I treat all my patients equally. That you are part of the problem and you are actively contributing to harm because your passive silence is active violence. So, you might not be the nurse that does the side eye to a laboring black woman, but you won't be the person to speak up when something is wrong. You'll be the nurse just following doctor's orders, just pushing the patient to the car. But if you are the kind of nurse who cannot recognize that a patient's skin color, one of the most obvious things about them, puts them at a three times greater risk of death.

[00:04:37]What are we doing? I'm going to explain to you why equality should never be a goal in healthcare. Our goal should be equity. I'm going to use a photo that's often used to explain this, but I'm going explain why it doesn't work on our scenario and give you a better example.

[00:04:52]So, this is what equity means. Okay?

[00:04:54]We're not giving everyone the exact same thing because giving everyone the exact same thing will still end with people having bad outcomes. We have to recognize the specific needs of our patient and give them exactly what they need to be successful or to live or to not be traumatized when they come into a hospital. Here's why this doesn't work when we're talking about black women.

[00:05:16]This puts the problem or the onus within the body of that person. Presentations for nurses and talk about the importance of speaking up when it might feel scary to protect our patients from birth trauma, harm or death. And in this presentation, I made this graphic which shows two equally hided women in two different environments in the same place. This woman's ancestors were enslaved women who were experimented on by a monster named James Marian Sims and called it gynecology. Given procedures without anesthesia because they thought black women could not feel pain. Even in my nursing books, in the culture section, it talked about how black women have a higher pain tolerance. In order to improve outcomes for this patient, we have to either repair the ground underneath her or move her to a safer location. We have to change her environment. And when it comes to birth, there's a lot of well-meaning advocates who say, "This is why you should have a home birth." No, that should never have to be the answer. We have to make birthing in a hospital while black safer. And it starts by treating your black patients differently. Stop being personally offended if they don't inherently trust you because you're wearing a badge and scrubs because they've likely experienced mistreatment from someone who looks an awful lot like you. It's why my 9-year-old doesn't [ __ ] with bees. He got stung by a bee. And even though there are going to be millions of bees who don't sting him, he will never trust a bee. And I don't blame him cuz every bee has the opportunity to hurt him. We know that black women are less likely to be listened to. So, knowing that, how would you approach a patient who you knew was at a higher risk of not being listened to? Would you pull up a stool and hang on every word she says? Would you make a promise to listen to her? Would you echo her wants and desires louder to the other people on the care team? Would you act immediately if she says something is wrong, or would you brush it off and say you're fine? But most importantly, are you willing to speak up against your co-workers, against people you may consider to be your friends when something is not right? If even half of the healthcare workers in this country made a pact to never allow this type of behavior to exist in our orbit, we could make things better. But it counts on you holding up your end of the deal. To treat your black patients differently, to never be silent in the face of injustice, and to always be on the lookout for ways that you can help your patients feel heard.

[00:07:48]>> What's going on everyone? Welcome.

[00:07:50]Welcome back to the channel. Guys, one thing I've always believed is that the most dangerous place for anyone to feel unheard is a hospital. Because when you are in pain, you are at your most vulnerable. You trust that people standing over you will listen. You trust they'll take your symptoms seriously.

[00:08:12]You actually trust they'll do everything they can to help. But what happens when that trust isn't enough? So guys, I have a compilation of videos. White nurses are having a lot to say. Please subscribe. Let's lock in and watch until the end and then I'll be back with more commentary. As you watch, make sure you leave your opinion in the comment section. Thank you.

[00:08:35]>> I'm well aware that what I'm about to say could get me in a lot of trouble, but I think it's important enough to say. I'm a labor and delivery nurse and I treat my black patients differently.

[00:08:43]I've seen nurses, especially labor and delivery nurses, online saying things like, "I'm color blind. I don't treat my patients any differently." Meaning that they don't treat their black patients worse than they treat their white patients. And here's why it's not enough to be a colorblind nurse in 2023.

[00:09:01]Because I know that in my specialty, labor and delivery, black women are more likely than any other race to be harmed in pregnancy, childirth, and beyond. The US is the worst place to have a baby if you're black in the developed world. Why is this not happening anywhere else?

[00:09:18]Systemic racism. If you don't believe me, just Google James Marian Sims. So, not only are black women not believed about their pain, not believed about their symptoms, but also they may put off getting something checked out because they don't trust medical providers for good reason. So, here's how I treat my black patients differently. Number one, I don't expect them to inherently trust me because I'm wearing scrubs and a badge. And I don't get offended if they don't. Many black women are coming in to have a baby already having experiences of not being listened to. And until I'm able to prove to them that I'm someone that can be trusted, they shouldn't trust me. More than my white patients, I emphasize the fact that I will always believe them.

[00:10:01]Yes, my white patients know also that I will believe them. But I really, really drive it home that I promise you that I'm going to believe everything they say. I include every single person in the room who is supporting this patient in a conversation about preeacclampsia even if they don't have it because preeacclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the United States and preeacclampsia [snorts] can happen even after you've had your baby. I tell them about the symptoms and I also tell the support people that if you hear her saying any of these things make sure that she gets seen and if when she gets seen you don't feel like she's being listened to go somewhere else. I let them know that I'm here to be their birth bouncer and that I'm not going to let anyone do anything to them only for them in their baby with their permission. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I have slapped a provider's hand away um when the patient said no. I don't know anything about that. I have no hard data to back this up, but I have a hypothesis that black women are not being repositioned in labor as much as white women. So my patients know and I will say this that I'm going to turn you like a rotisserie chicken because movement is gold in labor especially after you have an epidural. If when we have a baby I don't like the amount of bleeding that I'm seeing. I am early talking to that provider about hey what do you think about maybe giving a little bit of cyotech? What do you think about putting in a jada? Because postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death.

[00:11:22]I will always use whatever privilege I have to make sure that my patients are heard. That's why it's so important to treat your black patients differently.

[00:11:30]And if you're a colorblind nurse, you're part of the problem. Story time about the time that me and my son both almost died because my labor and delivery nurse was a racist. So, actually, let me back up to the day before I had my son. I was having really bad back pains and this is my first child. I didn't know what anything was supposed to feel like. So, I went to the hospital to see if that was normal and just to make sure everything was going okay with the baby.

[00:11:51]They told me that I was having back contractions and that I was forced in meters dilated, but that they were going to send me home because more than likely it would be a long time before I delivered and I could essentially just wait until I progressed, but they told me to come back if anything changed. So, I went home and pretty much that whole rest of the day and night, nothing happened. And the next morning, I was just in a lot of pain, still having back contractions, but nothing major changed.

[00:12:15]So, I decided I was going to spend the whole day essentially walking, trying to make myself go into labor naturally. And again, nothing happened other than my pain in my back intensified. And then I got ready for bed. I think at this point it was around 11:00 and I got up to use the restroom and my water broke. So, me and my husband got everything ready. We rushed to the hospital and went inside.

[00:12:37]And when we went in, I think there was a nurse that I was dealing with and I know for sure there was one other. I think there may have been two, but there it wasn't very busy. I only saw like a couple people there. And then I'm certain that I was the only person there because the other nurse, the one that wasn't admitting me, um she made a comment about how I was it was weirdly quiet and I was the only person there to deliver. And then a little bit after I came in, one other woman came in and I say that only because just so you know, it's not like they were understaffed or that they just didn't have the capacity to see me there. It was very intentional. Anyway, so the nurse that was admitting me asked me when my due date was. I told her that ironically it was that day and she rolled her eyes at me and told me that she tells first time moms all the time that it's very unlikely that you are delivering on your due date and that we should expect to go beyond that if this is our first child and so that she thinks it's very unlikely that my water broke. I told her that I'm pretty sure I would know the difference and reluctantly she agreed to test me. and she told me that it was obviously in fact amniotic fluid and she admitted me. And when you're admitted to the hospital, they put monitors on your stomach to monitor the baby's heart rate as well as your contractions. But she was acting like she just didn't want to touch me, like I had leprosy or something. And so she was very lightly setting it on me and she didn't tighten it to the point where it wasn't even reading anything. And so there was just straight lines on the monitor. And I was concerned because I thought I didn't realize that she had put it on wrong. I just thought that she couldn't get a heart bait on the baby. And so I inquired about it and she told me no that it was going to be a long time until I was actually laboring so that she would come back and fix it. And then at this point I think I had called my mom and my sister and my mom and my sister came. They lived much closer to the hospital than I did. And um they got there relatively quickly and so we were all kind of hanging out in the room just waiting. I was still having bad contractions but nothing major was happening. Um I told them that she said it was going to be a while. Also, my mom and my sister went home and me and my husband stayed. And I think at this point it was maybe like 12:45ish and I had to get up and use the restroom again. And so I asked the nurse on the little speaker thing where you can communicate with them. I asked if it was okay if I used the restroom and if it would matter with the monitor. She told me it wasn't hooked up properly anyway.

[00:14:53]So that it didn't matter that I could use the restroom. And when I went to the restroom, I noticed that I was bleeding pretty heavily. So again, over the speaker, I asked her if that if she could come check because there was a lot of blood and I was concerned. And she just said, "You're actively in labor. Of course, there's going to be bleeding."

[00:15:07]So I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if that was normal or not.

[00:15:10]So I just got back in bed and I waited.

[00:15:12]But I was in a lot of pain at this point. And I told her that um every that I was experiencing a lot of pain. I did say I didn't want an epidural and that I was going to try to have the baby naturally. And she asked me what my pain level was. And mind you, she has not been back in the room once at this point. This is all communicating over the little speaker thing. So she said I told her that my pain level was at a five. She told me if it was really at a five that I wouldn't be able to have a conversation with her, a full conversation with her, and that she was going to put my chart at a two. Anyway, the rest of the night essentially nothing happened except for me being in a lot of pain and then her just not coming into the room. She didn't come back in from the time that she put the monitors on to the time that I delivered. She did not come back in once. And at the point that somebody else came back in, it was 7:40 in the morning. Um, and it was a new nurse and she was coming to erase the other nurse's name and tell me that she was taking over. And at that point, that's when she noticed that the monitor was not on me correctly. And she put it on or she attempted to put it on and tighten it. And so she pulled back my blanket that I had over me and then that's when she realized that I was in a pool of blood and um she kind of panicked and then she told me to get on all fours and so she could check me and then she called a bunch of nurses in and my doctor and then I at that point I started getting really laded and things were like just dizzy for me. I couldn't everything was fuzzy for me. And then she told me that my placenta had ruptured and that they couldn't get a heartbeat on the baby and that I was going to have to go into emergency uh go in to have an emergency C-section and um they rushed me in the elevator to the O room and then that's the last thing I remember because I believe I lost four pints of blood and I passed out from the blood loss. And then the next time I woke up, it was hours later and I woke up because someone on the administrative level of the hospital was in the room with my mom and I woke up to this woman t talking to my mom telling her she didn't know if me or my son was going to make it and that it was very touchandgo and that they wouldn't know anything for the next 24 hours. And then I passed out again. And then the second time that I woke up, um that time my brother was in the room with me and as well as my mom and they were just waiting and I asked where my son was and they told me that he was in the NICU and they were trying to get an IV in him. They needed to um administer an IV and that they I wasn't able to see him because they were concerned because of my blood loss that I was going to go into shock and that they were still treating him. And then I passed out again. The only other thing that I really remember about that day is a bunch of people going in and out of my room to check on me and then a bunch of people going in and out of the niku to check on my son. And the nurse that the nurse that had come in in the morning, she did bring me pictures because it was a full 24 hours before I was able to actually meet and hold my son. So, she would go take pictures of him for me, but they because the initial nurse there was such a long period of time between me being admitted and her um the new nurse coming in to check on me, they didn't know at what point my placenta had ruptured and how long my son had been without oxygen. So, they were worried about brain damage and they had to do a bunch of tests and he was also not in a stable condition because he himself had lost a lot of blood. And then again, they were worried about me going into shock because of the amount of blood that I lost. And then by the grace of God, the next day me and my son were both stable and he was able to come into my room with me. And it seems like every single person who worked at the hospital on a higher level. Obviously, that's an exaggeration, but a ton of people came into my room essentially apologizing, that there was such a lapse in care, and they were saying that it wasn't characteristic, that that wasn't their policy, and that um basically that they would be addressing the issue. And it realistically just seemed like they were trying to avoid being sued is what it came down to. But I bring all of this up because I saw that video of that woman who was screaming out in pain and minutes away from delivering her baby being ignored. And it's just another example of why the maternal mortality rate for black women is so high comparatively to other races. And it just really comes down to racism and there's really no explanation for it.

[00:19:23]>> Welcome [snorts] back. Thank you. Thank you for watching to the end. Guys, one thing that really hit me is that healthcare isn't just about medicine.

[00:19:31]It's about listening. Just think about it. How many times has someone told you you'll be fine when deep, deep, deep down they know something was not right?

[00:19:43]We've all experienced that in everyday life. Maybe it was at work, maybe at school, or maybe in a relationship. But imagine hearing those same words while you are lying in a hospital bed. That's a completely different situation. One thing black families have talked about for generations is the importance of speaking up during medical appointments.

[00:20:09]Not because they are trying to be difficult, but because they want to be heard.

[00:20:15]There's an old saying, closed mouths don't get fed. Sometimes asking more questions, speaking up, you know, one more time or insisting someone takes another look can save a life.

[00:20:33]That shouldn't be necessary. But many families feel it has become part of navigating the healthare system. Pain is one of the strangest things in the world because nobody else can feel yours. A doctor can read your chart. A nurse can check your blood pressure. Machines can monitor your heartbeat, but only only you know what your body is trying to tell you. That's why listening actually matters, especially especially when someone repeatedly says something isn't right. One thing I found heartbreaking is hearing stories from mothers who felt ignored during one of the most important moments of their lives. Giving birth should be a moment filled with excitement and hope, not fear that your concerns won't be taken seriously. Every mother actually deserves to feel safe.

[00:21:28]Every child deserves the best possible start in life and every family deserves confidence that they are receiving quality care. Another thing I couldn't stop thinking about is how many black people grow up hearing advice before going to the doctor. Ask questions. Take somebody with you. Don't leave until they explain everything.

[00:21:52]For some families, that's almost become common wisdom. It's not about distrusting every healthare worker. It's about making sure your voice doesn't disappear in the room. The conversation also reminds us how important good nurses and doctors really are. Most people never forget the health care professional who treated them with compassion. The nurse who stayed after the shift ended. That doctor who actually listened instead of rushing to the next patient. the medical professional who made you feel like a human being instead of another number on a clipboard.

[00:22:34]Those people change lives and honestly they deserve more recognition. There's another saying I actually love. People may not remember every word you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. That couldn't be more true in healthcare. Sometimes healing begins the moment someone finally feels believed.

[00:22:58]Sometimes the strongest person in the room isn't the loudest. It's the people willing to say, "Let's slow down. Let's check again. Let's make sure we are not missing something." Real leadership often looks like protecting someone who can't protect themselves in that moment.

[00:23:18]Whether that's a nurse picking up, a family member asking more questions, or maybe a doctor taking an extra 5 minutes to investigate further, those moments matter, perhaps more than we realize. At the same time, I think it's very important to recognize that many healthare workers genuinely want the best for their patients. Every day, thousands of nurses, doctors, and medical staff work incredibly long hours caring for complete strangers. that deserves appreciation. But appreciating dedicated professionals doesn't mean ignoring areas where the system can improve. Both things can be true at the same time. Maybe that's the biggest lesson here. Health care works best when trust exists on both sides. Patients should actually feel comfortable speaking honestly. Health care professionals should listen carefully.

[00:24:14]Families should feel included instead of dismissed. Because at the end of the day, medicine isn't only about treating illness. It's about treating people. And every person deserves dignity. They deserve respect and the confidence that when they say, "I don't feel right," someone will stop, listen, and take them seriously.

[00:24:38]Those are actually my thoughts. But as always, I'd love to hear yours. What changes do you think would help build greater trust between patients and the health care systems? Just let me know your thoughts in the comments below. And if you enjoyed this reaction, don't forget to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and turn on the notifications so you never miss our next discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one.