Toronto born and raised, Shirah Fish is still getting used to the presentation of American racism, despite having been on this side of the border for much of her adult life. So when she brought her infant daughter to the emergency room at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, a part of the University of Michigan Hospital Campus, she expected to be treated like any other patient family. What she didn’t know then was that Black families are, according to both other former patients and multiple staff members, notoriously treated very poorly as compared to other patients in the Ann Arbor, MI hospital. The story you will read today is Part One of a multi-part series following her experience with C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. TribeHerald will be reaching out to hospital representatives directly for their side of the story over the upcoming week; the following begins Ms. Fish’s own accounting of the events that led to her ending a harrowing nearly month-long visit to the hospital with an involuntary mandated four-day stay under what now appear to be false pretenses.
Dassi and Zachary are little miracles. The fifth and sixth of Ms. Fish’s biracial Orthodox Jewish children, they were excitedly welcomed by their older sisters and brother. Unfortunately, the siblings had to wait to cuddle their newest additions; the infant twins were born premature, and for the first four months of little Dassi’s life, she was kept in the NICU. Dassi’s problems included significant issues with weight gain and feeding, and once she was finally allowed to come home, her mother was incredibly grateful for the amount of community, medical, and social support granted to her to care for her medically fragile child. Like any concerned mother who has the resources, she was in constant contact with her children’s pediatrician to track growth charts and progress, and address the medical issues she was facing with an infant who could only consume nutrients through a feeding tube, while simultaneously balancing nursing another infant. Thankfully, three of her daughters are old enough to not only help, but babysit and even drive, so while her hands were certainly full, they were supported by both people outside and inside of the home.
Because of Dassi’s conditions, she had been placed on the waitlist to be treated by the very well known and well renowned pediatric cardiology team at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. However, when after three weeks of being home, Ms. Fish and her pediatrician were both concerned about Dassi’s condition, her pediatrician recommended she bring her family to the Emergency Room at C.S. Mott. The emergency room doctors chose to admit little Dassi, but there was no room in Pediatric Cardiology. So, where would she go? Ms. Fish was informed that a bed was available in Pediatric Oncology, and she and her children were transferred to the Oncology floor. While under normal circumstances, any non-admitted children would not be permitted to remain during a whole stay, the Oncology staff was incredibly understanding and made Ms. Fish feel right at home, allowing her nursing twin, Zachary, to remain with his mother and sister at all times. She began to relax and feel that her family was being competently cared for with a team who understood twin mom experiences and schedules. Any other families she met on the floor were similarly supportive.
This sense of well-being was unfortunately to be overturned, piece by piece, upon her family’s transfer to the Pediatric Cardiology unit. Her five month old daughter was finally in the right place, the staff was validating her experiences with feeding troubles as “normal for a heart baby”, and she felt completely understood at first. Her meeting with the attending physician, Dr. Derek Spindler, would be the beginning of all of that changing.
Make sure to add tribe@tribeherald.com to your Address Book so you don’t miss the next newsletter, and check in with us next Thursday to read the personal accounting of how this Black, Orthodox Jewish mother first faced micro-aggressions, and then was grossly mischaracterized and then kept against her will by the Pediatric Cardiology staff at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If you have any personal experiences with this or any other hospital that you would like to share, please email tribe@tribeherald.com with Hospitals as the subject line.