Hospital Planning ‘Reparations Framework’ Will Offer ‘Preferential Care Based On Race’
A Boston hospital announced they will attempt to start an “antiracist agenda for medicine” and will offer “preferential care based on race” and “race-explicit interventions.”
“Together with a coalition of fellow practitioners and hospital leaders, we have developed what we hope will be a replicable pilot program for direct redress of many racial health care inequities,” Harvard Medical School instructors Bram Wispelwey and Michelle Morse wrote in the article.
The authors wrote that “racial inequity” in hospitals has a negative impact on patients and suggest “cash transfers and discounted or free care” for minorities only.
“Offering preferential care based on race or ethnicity may elicit legal challenges from our system of colorblind law … We encourage other institutions to proceed confidently on behalf of equity and racial justice, with backing provided by recent White House executive orders,” the authors explain in a reference to recent executive orders signed by President Joe Biden.
The authors of the paper claim that white cardiac patients at Brigham and Women’s Hospital were more likely to be admitted than minorities who are prone to suffer from cardiac problems. As a result of the findings the authors brought in a critical race theory expert and have developed a pilot program which will launch later this spring.
In a statement to the press Brigham and Women’s hospital touted the pilot program but refused to say it’s the formal position of the hospital.
“The Brigham is committed to examining and eliminating the many impacts that racism has on the health and wellbeing of our patients,” the hospital wrote in a statement. “As part of our system’s United Against Racism campaign, we support efforts focused on improving both the access and the experience of our patients, focusing on community health and advocacy, and increasing the diversity of leadership.”
“As part of this commitment, researchers have proposed a pilot program for heart failure patients that aims to address the racial inequities found in a recent study, which found that race, as well as other factors, affected who was admitted to cardiology service at the hospital. Aspects of this pilot program were described within the opinion piece you’ve cited. This program offers a critical step toward identifying opportunities to improve access for patients who have been historically denied equal access.”