Are you safe in the hands of healthcare

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Do you feel comfortable when you go to your primary doctor, health clinic, or even the hospital?

Well, having the ability to walk into any one of these places without another thought is a privilege some of us hold and have never recognized. What if I told you that not everyone who seeks health care receives the same treatment or if treatment at all.

I am going to bring attention to a story that occurred in July 2023 and received news coverage. There was a young couple who were expecting when they encountered a tragic, life-altering doctor experience. Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr. were young expecting parents that went into the medical center happily waiting to meet their precious baby, Isaiha.

What is a more beautiful moment for a young, expecting couple, than when it is time to give birth and meet your little one. However, this couple did not have the happy ending that they were hoping for. When Jessica went to give birth, she began having complications and requested to have a C-section. She was then declined by her doctor and had to continue trying to vaginally birth her child. Soon after her baby got stuck and they had no choice but to start performing a C-section. Their attorney, Roderick Edmond, stated that the doctor had applied an extreme amount of force on the baby’s head and neck before the C-section and during the surgery the legs and body of the baby were recovered, but Jessica had to push the baby’s head out vaginally.

Now, as if this young couple had not already experienced enough trauma from the birth and negligence of their doctor, but now they had to face social media. When I say that they had to face social media, I am referring to the pictures that were exposed on Instagram by Dr. Gates, who was hired to perform the child’s autopsy.

There are so many aspects of this story that just make you fearful of what could happen to you at the hands of medical professionals. I do believe that persons in the medical field can be lifesavers and are trained and equipped to help people in life-threatening circumstances. But, it does make one start to question, is everyone treated fairly when they seek medical attention.

The sad but obvious truth to this question is no. It sparks a conversation as to if this was a white, heterosexual couple would they have received different treatment care from these doctors? Now, as we will never have a clear answer to this question, we can speculate.

There is historical proof that people of minorities have been treated poorly and unjustly by medical professionals. Black women in particular have higher rates of birth mortality than white women. There are two quotes that stuck out to me from an abstract that I read from a study that was conducted on disparities of maternal outcomes based on ethnic backgrounds.

The first quote was under the objective section and it said, “Racial and ethnic disparities in obstetric care and delivery outcomes have shown that black women experience high rates of pregnancy-related mortality and morbidity, along with high rates of cesarean delivery, compared with other racial and ethnic groups.” (Tangel et al.).

The second quote from this study was within the conclusion section of the study that was conducted and quoted, “In most insurance payers and socioeconomic strata, race/ethnicity alone is a factor that predicts parturient outcomes.” (Tangel et al.).

Both of these quotes from this study can be the evidence needed to show the answer to my question, and does in fact make one wonder how different the outcome could have been for this young couple and their innocent child.

Are we or our future children safe or should we be protecting ourselves and them from medical professionals, too?