In April 2016, Keira Johnson underwent a caesarean section at the famous Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to give birth to her second child with husband Charles Johnson.
The procedure took only 17 minutes.
Less than 12 hours later, a 39-year-old man died of massive internal trauma: doctors found three liters of blood in his abdomen.
This week, Charles Johnson filed a civil rights lawsuit against the hospital, saying he believes he has evidence that staff did not treat his wife as well because she was black.
“There’s a culture of racism raging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,” Johnson said at a press conference Wednesday.
Johnson and his attorneys said they learned of the surprising inequality in the standards of care of white women versus women of color as part of his inappropriate death lawsuit against the facility because they were able to question the experts and staff of the hospital under oath. The false death case is expected to be heard by the Los Angeles Supreme Court next week.
“I have no doubt that my wife is here today and Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day with her sons if she is a Caucasian woman,” Johnson said. “The truth is that on April 12, 2016, when we entered Cedar-Sinai Hospital to expect it to be the worst day of our lives, the biggest risk factor Keira Dixon Johnson faced was racism.”
According to the lawsuit, Keira Johnson was in good health before entering Cedars-Sinai. He also achieved success: Charles said in previous interviews that his wife speaks five languages, is a licensed driver, a marathoner, and walks alone on an ice rink.
After the caesarean section, Kira felt severe pain in her abdomen and her family noticed blood in the catheter, so they informed the doctor, who ordered a CT scan. But the scan did not take place. The request of the medical staff to treat him for harvest was not translated into hours.
At one point, Charles Johnson said Wednesday, the nurse told him, “Sir, your husband is not a priority right now.”
A caesarean section usually takes about an hour, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, most of the time being spent suturing the mother’s body after childbirth. In Kira’s case, her bladder was ruptured during the procedure and it did not close properly, which caused her to have hours of internal bleeding. When he was finally taken for surgery, the doctors could not save him.
The health differences between black and white women are one of 2021 Learning In the Journal of Women’s Health, it is considered a “reflection of the inequality experienced by black women in social and economic step “. Black women are two to three times more likely to have pregnancy -related deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which states that most of these deaths are preventable.
Johnson said civil rights are “more than rent”.
“This is a strong and final message that institutions like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center can no longer steal black and brown families in vain,” he said.
Source: Huffpost
