Kizzy Diamond Shines A Light On The Health Disparities Black Women Experience While In Medical Care
There are two pandemics that are plaguing the year of 2020, both transmissible and potentially deadly. One of which, most of us have only been aware of for the past five months, and the other, we all have seen founded in the principles of America. While racism is not a disease of biological nature, it has proven to be embedded in the status quo of the foundation of the United States — Black people in the United States are disproportionately at risk to be afflicted by both. The murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, have echoed across the tone of 2020 and subsequently revolutionized the approach taken to protest and the abolition of police brutality and racial injustice. Unfortunately, our fight to stop the murder of our people by hand of racial injustice is not limited to the streets and the comfort of our homes- it is not just a social and political construct but a matter of health as well.
Race- related health disparities are a sinister reminder that there are seldom places Black people are untouched by systemic racism- Black women specifically being on the receiving end of those disparities. The CDC notes that most pregnancy related deaths are preventable, so the reveal that the pregnancy mortality rate for Black women is 5 times that of a White woman is staggering. Black women are 3–4 times more likely to suffer from disabilities related to childbirth and 2–3 times more likely to die from being hospitalized for nonfatal difficulties. Being admitted should be a time where the sole focus should be that of wellness and recovery. Instead, it often leads to increased stress because Black women are having to advocate for themselves for proper treatment. COVID-19 has largely restricted the ability for anyone other than the patient to enter medical institutions, with caregivers and family being a prime factor of support, it is that much more taxing when you are alone in your advocacy and enduring mistreatment.
26-year-old Esohe Omoruyi, also known as “Kizzy Diamond”, experienced first-hand, the ailment that many Black women face. On July 10th, Omoruyi went live on Instagram to document the neglect she received while in the Cardiac unit ICU at Memorial Hermann hospital. “I really feel like they will let me die in here”, is the cry that ushered in hundreds of thousands of responses on social media, and resonated with many Black women who have experienced neglect while in the care of medical professionals. The remaining fourteen minutes and forty seconds of the live video are nothing short of infuriating. On July 7, 2020, the 26-year-old suffered a heart attack and was admitted to Memorial Hermann hospital in the Medial Center in Houston, Texas. She went on to recount her journey of arriving to the center, starting with a reluctant group of EMT’s that labeled her cardiac episode an “anxiety attack”, initially refusing to administer oxygen, despite her exhibiting symptoms of a heart attack. Omoruyi then stated she requested the EMT’s to leave her home and her stepfather took her to her local Urgent Care where a Black professional recognized she was having a heart attack and promptly called a bus to Memorial Hermann. The video pans down to her arm where you can see a blood-pressure cuff restricting the flow of an IV on that same arm. Visibly in pain, Omoruyi proceeded to recount the days leading up to her live. Omoruyi recalled the time she requested pain medication after her CATH surgery, a request that was ignored for hours before she started inquiring of the status of the request from her clinical team. “The nurses told me they couldn’t get a hold of my physician to approve the medications which the doctor told me himself he put in as a standing order before he left! I had to call my boss who called our team cardiologist, who then called my cardiologist who then called me directly to tell me the nurses had NEVER reached out to him asking about the meds.”. It was at that moment one of the attending nurses made the comment “It’s not the end of the world” when confronted about the delay. She goes on to recollect how on July 9th, she requested multiple times to take a shower, over five hours later and just 2 days after undergoing emergency surgery for her coronary spasm, Omoruyi takes it upon herself to undress and remake her bed as her attending nurses watch through an ICU room window. The camera spins around to reveal several bodies sitting at the nurses station in the Cardiac unit ICU, clearly within the line of sight from Omoruyi’s room. As if to add further insult to injury, Omoruyi rigs her shower herself so that she can take a bath. “This is what we live through, this is why so many Black women are dying” she states as she responds to the viewers on her live. Omoruyi did mention she was able to find solace in a single African-American nurse who showed her compassion and assisted her with putting fresh sheets on her bed the day of the live. As viewers encouraged her to go to patient advocacy, she asserts that upon sharing her grievances with her attending physician, she was told to be thankful for the provider that saved her life, a later recording confirms this statement. Omoruyi received thousands of stories sharing a similar experience and one in particular that bears a horrific ending for a young woman who was admitted to the same hospital for delivery last year.
Moriah Ballard-Johnson was admitted to Memorial Hermann on August 8, 2019 for delivery. After being assessed by a resident physician she was told, that she would not be induced for four weeks. Two days later, Ballard called for her mother to alert the nurse as she rocked with pain, a total of 45 minutes passed before a nurse arrived to place her on a monitor. In that moment, it was apparent that there was no heartbeat present for the baby and she was rushed into an emergency c-section where she underwent four blood transfusions resulting in stillbirth. In a later post, Ballard shared her story on social media as she called for the advocacy of health and wellness for Black women.
These stories blanket the experience of Black women when in medical care. Time is a matter of life and death in the medical field and oftentimes, Black women are subject to preventable circumstances due to the negligence of medical professionals. A deadly conflux of health disparities and neglect formulate the statistics that support the needless, disproportionate, mortality rate of Black women in this country. The unabated call for advocacy extends past those who are charged with protecting our communities and toward those who swear an oath to protect our lives.
