Question

2 Hospitals Are Accused Of Segregating by Race By RONALD SULLIVANMAY 20, 1994

.New York State's top human rights official said yesterday that she was investigating charges that black and Hispanic maternity patients at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan were segregated by race. The official, Commissioner Margarita Rosa of the State Division of Human Rights, announced the investigation at a legislative hearing in Manhattan at which three maternity patients accused Mount Sinai of discrimination, testifying that they were placed on a particular hospital maternity floor because of their race. Both hospitals, two of Manhattan's largest and most prestigious medical centers, denied any segregation based on race. The charges, made at a hearing conducted by the Assembly subcommittee on urban health, followed investigations by the State Department of Health that found that both hospitals had long assigned maternity patients to different floors based on whether they had private health insurance or were covered by the Medicaid health program for the poor. A result was that one floor consisted mainly of poor Medicaid patients who were predominantly black and Hispanic, while the other floor included mostly privately insured middle-class patients, most of whom were white. The hospitals said that Medicaid patients were placed together for practical reasons and that there was no intention to discriminate by race. The new charges, state officials said, were more serious, because they involve accusations that both hospitals steered maternity patients to one floor or another because of race, not because of who was paying their bills. Commissioner Rosa said, "In addition to a source of income, the record strongly suggests that criteria such as race, color, or national origin many have influenced the placement of post-natal patients at Mount Sinai and Presbyterian hospitals." The Commissioner said the testimony of the three woman yesterday, and two other maternity patients who testified at another hearing a week ago, "prompted the State Division of Human Rights to initiate an investigation." Efficiency Cited Both hospitals insisted that any discrimination in the past was unintentional. They said their previous practice -- which they have since abandoned -- was intended to place Medicaid patients as close together as possible to provide more efficient care, since those patients did not have private physicians and relied on resident physicians in training for most of their care. Richard R. Kearns, Presbyterian's executive vice president, denied any racial discrimination. "Half of our privately insured patients are from racial minorities," he said. "We are prepared to cooperate fully with any investigation," he added. Testifying at the hearing yesterday, Dr. John W. Rowe, Mount Sinai's president, repeatedly denied that any placement of maternity patients "was driven by race. "Bed-assignment procedures were designed to provide high-quality care to those patients who did not have a physician, and not, as has been alleged, to segregate our patients based on race or ability to pay." He said maternity patients covered by Medicaid were no longer separated from those who are privately insured and black and Hispanic women, regardless of who paid their bills, were now randomly mixed with white patients on the two hospital floors devoted to maternity care. But his testimony was disputed by three witnesses who delivered their babies at Mount Sinai last year. Accompanied by a lawyer from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the three woman accused Mount Sinai of segregating them by race with the Medicaid patients even though they were all covered by private health insurance. "It was racial," said Camille Bastian, who said she was of Indian ancestry. Janet Soto, who described herself as Hispanic, said, "All the privately insured patients on the fifth floor were white, while all the Medicaid and uninsured on the fourth were either black or Hispanic.," Deborah Ford, who is black, said, "I saw some white patients in the elevator, but never on our floor -- not even one." But Dr. Rowe testified that Mount Sinai figures from October -- before the practice of separating Medicaid patients was ended -- showed that 30 percent of the patients on the fourth floor were white, compared with 80 percent on the floor above. He also said that 20 percent of the patients on the fourth floor was covered by private insurance. Tom Hartman, deputy director of the Health Department's Health Care Standards and Surveillance Group, said, his agency had found no evidence of any racial discrimination in New York hospitals. But Carlos F. Perez, the surveillance group's administrator in New York City, said, "Perhaps we were not sensitive enough to the issue in the past, not aware enough."

Here is a Mt. Sinai Hospital 1994 finding of racial discrimination against maternity patients. What was the result of this?

Answer 1

Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 1978 was an amendment on the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The objective of this act was to eliminate the probability of any kind of sex discrimination on the basis of the pregnancy or related medical conditions. Reading the allegations and testimonials of various maternity patients at Mt. Sinai Hospital, we can conclude that there was clear violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act at the Hospital. The hospital can be sued with heavy monetary fines for the violation. If the condition persists, the license of the hospital can be cancelled.