When studying segregation, most people study separate hotels, restaurants, and other various miscellaneous places. However, most people do think of segregated healthcare. I think that is because healthcare is supposed to be the symbol of helping people no matter who they are or where they have come from; the only priority is to make sure they are healthy. During the 20th century, healthcare was extremely segregated. In the South, it was not uncommon to have separate hospitals for blacks and whites with the whites-only hospitals having better resources and facilities. If the hospital admitted both races, they often placed black patients in basements or attics. In 1959, Dr. Paul Cornley conducted a survey on hospital segregation. He found that, “83 percent of Northern hospitals were integrated in terms of patient admissions, but only 6 percent of Southern hospitals were. Of the other 94 percent of facilities in the South, 33 percent admitted no African-Americans, 50 percent admitted them to segregated wards.” Also, blood transfusion donors and receivers had to be the same race, no matter the clinical blood type match. There was segregation at birth too, with black and white infants not being cared for in the same nursey.
It was not only patients that were segregated too, many physicians were segregated as well. In Dr. Cornley’s study,” Only 10 percent of Northern hospitals accepted African-American interns or residents; only 20 percent had them on staff. Only 6 percent of Southern hospitals accepted them as interns or residents, and only 25 percent granted them staff privileges.” As a result of segregation, hundreds and possibly thousands of people died due to segregated hospitals denying them care. Although there has been vast improvements to racial equality in the medical world, there is still much more work to be done. For example, in 2012, of the 688,468 active physicians, only 4% were black. Clearly there needs to be more work done in order to bring equality to arguably the most important profession in the world.
I found this topic very interesting as it relates to something I want to do in the future. Continuing with research on this topic, I came across some shocking statistics about recent years in the medical field. For example, by mid century, the population for our country will be more than half non-white; however, of the 18,000 individuals attending medical school this year, less than 3,000 are African American. It is hard to believe that they comprise less than 9 percent of nurses, 6 percent of physicians and 5 percent of dentists. As these statistics remains low, it points to the hard reality that the availability of healthcare services for minorities will suffer. This is proven by the higher death rate from heart disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, mental health, and other diseases. Along with the fact that minority children are more likely to die from leukemia than white children. To think that the quality and availability of health providers for minorities have a major effect on outcomes of their life is scary truth. I hope that within the near future, these statistics of African American health providers will increase.