Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink Read Free Book Online Page B

Southern hospitals to submit to integration.
     Medicare and other federal hospital programs were introduced in the mid-1960s, and
     hospitals were ineligible for reimbursements if they discriminated against or racially
     segregated patients. Baptist refusedto join the programs. “It is our conviction,” a 1966 hospital statement said, “that
     we can serve all of the people better if we remain free of governmental entanglements
     that would dictate the terms and conditions under which this hospital shall be operated.”
    New Orleanians sent supportive letters to the hospital’s administrator. “It’s heartening
     to realize that there are still some who do not succumb to the dictates of socialism,”
     one person wrote. “Congratulations,” wrote another, “on retaining the integrity of
     the hospital in the face of the ever growing pressure of the Federal government to
     take away the rights of the business and professional men of this nation.”
    The hospital began quietly accepting African American patients in 1968, in line with
     newly adopted nondiscrimination statements made by the Southern Baptist Convention.
     The denomination’s history was entwined with segregation, but its actions were now
     changing under pressure. The following year, in November,the hospital set aside its opposition to Medicare and began participating in the health
     insurance program for seniors, “to ease the financial burden for these elderly patients,”
     its administrator explained in a hospital newsletter. In 1969, the federal government
     declared Southern Baptist Hospital in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
     The decision to accept Medicare was good for business. The number of patients over
     sixty-five years old at Southern Baptist nearly tripled over the first two weeks.
    Tensions persisted. A decade later, between the years 1979 and 1980, at least six
     employees filed charges of race discrimination against the hospital with the Equal
     Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing key parts
     of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (in at least two of the cases, the agency found no
     cause to believe the allegations were true). One of the six employees, African American
     engineer Issac E. Frezel,sued Southern Baptist Hospitals, Inc., in federal district court. He alleged that
     it had violated his rights under the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1866 by engaging
     in illegal racial discrimination when it placed him on probation for “unauthorized
     shift changes,” passed himover for promotion, and, ultimately, fired him. In his suit, he contended that a white
     coworker involved in the same offense was not disciplined. The hospital’s lawyers
     argued that nothing illegal had occurred. The suit settled out of court for an unreported
     sum.
    When Jannie Burgess had received poor treatment from patients as a nurse at various
     New Orleans hospitals, she did what she felt she had to do: gritted her teeth and
     smiled and kept going. She had a long career, and after retirement moved into senior
     housing at Flint-Goodridge Apartments, the pre–Civil Rights era site ofFlint-Goodridge Hospital, once the only private hospital in New Orleans where “Negro”
     patients could receive care and their doctors could pursue residency training. Burgess
     cared for an ailing brother at home and grew softer and rounder with age.
    Surgery and chemotherapy had stalled her uterine cancer. She recovered and lived well
     for two years. In early August 2005, her legs wouldn’t carry her properly. She was
     admitted to Memorial to investigate the cause of her severe weakness. She had a bowel
     blockage. A surgeon opened her abdomen and found cancer in her liver. The tumor couldn’t
     be removed. “I don’t want to live on machines,” she said, and so her doctor gave her
     a Do Not Resuscitate order. She developed an infection, possibly as a result of the
     surgery, and her kidneys began to fail, possibly as