In tonight's facing race,
he made headlines last year when he
resigned in protest from the Odessa
Brown Children's Clinic at Seattle
Children's Hospital, citing racism
in his first television interview.
Since then, Doctor Ben Danielson helps
us understand what racism looks like
in American health care and at Seattle,
children in particular where he
says top leaders should be replaced.
When people ask
you, is there racism in
healthcare? What do you say? It's
undeniable, irrefutable, the data is there.
It's proven and shown, and it's
surprising to me that we still have to
ask that question. Ask Doctor
Ben Danielson about racism in healthcare
and he can tick off a litany of
disturbing studies on race and medicine.
Let's say you're
a black woman who has reached the
heights of education and therefore
pretty comfortable socially,
economically. In this country,
the chance of you dying in the
pregnancy and delivery and the
chance of your baby dying in
pregnancy and the delivery is
higher than for anyone else,
including anyone else who hasn't
finished high school. And So
what that means is that the issues of racism.
Go beyond the issues of
socioeconomics and poverty.
The treatment of headaches is different
based on the color of your skin,
the chance of a woman getting
adequate treatment for breast cancer,
lumpectomy or radiation therapy.
It goes down based on the color of your skin.
The chance of getting adequate
treatment for prostate cancer and
getting diagnosed on time for that
adequate treatment goes down for men.
I just had a knee replacement
surgery and the data from 2018
shows that if you're black,
you're less likely to be offered any
replacement when it's the right thing to do
for you. I think that was the
last badge, Danielson says.
Seattle Children's Hospital did
little to address racism during his
20 years as the medical director of
the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic.
Children's Hospital recently admitted
that security at the hospital was called
disproportionately on black families,
and Danielson says often there were
no translators for patients who
spoke languages other than English.
Was
their overt racism.
Tordue tord me. Yeah, yeah,
I think a last straw of many for
me was around this time last year
when the same person who would
use the N word in describing me.
I had also suddenly been touted
as a champion for diversity.
I think was the term that was
used and the best way to make an
important statement about something.
Then was was to
leave in protest Doctor Ben
Danielson at Odessa, Brown Children's
Clinic at Seattle Children's has
resigned that choice.
To step away, set off a wave of protest.
Children launched an investigation into
allegations of racism at the hospital,
finding, among other things,
that the hospital quote did not
adequately investigate or address
a 2009 allegation that doctor
Jim Hendricks referred to Doctor
Danielson using a racist epithet,
and that there is an environment
at the hospital that excludes
and undervalues people of color.
Children has released only an excerpt
of the report and has declined to.
Release the full findings.
Recently, 100 Seattle Children's
employees walked off the job.
In protest they want the
full report released. I share
in their outrage.
I'm moved by that strong voice and
they're calling for that, not about me.
They're calling for that about the
hospital about a love for a hospital
that they know can be better,
and I think that's really,
really powerful.
Do you feel like things are changing?
Enough
that it Seattle children.
To be honest with you, I really
don't believe that. So you think
that the current leadership needs to go?
It's an outrage that we still have
the same leadership in place.
If there were any other sort of performance.
Measure. Other than racism.
I know that a corporation like that
would never retain. The leadership
Danielson has since joined the Department
of Pediatrics at the University
of Washington School of Medicine.
He says a change in leadership
at children's would be just
the beginning of change. You
say that we need to have
measurable outcomes when it comes
to fixing racism in healthcare.
I'm wondering what that looks like.
We do not have a dearth of solutions.
We do not have an absence of answers.
We do not have a lack of strategies or ideas.
I'm just going to be bold and
say we have a lack of will,
so the measures that we could be
making are pretty clear when it comes
to how we're creating opportunities
for young people of color to
consider fields in healthcare.
For example, how are recruitment processes
are happening to medical schools?
How are we hiring and retaining
staff at places like hospitals
broken down by racial background?
And other forms of disaggregation.
These are all measurable things
at the at the environment and
staffing and diversity level.
You've been an advocate.
You've been an example.
So what keeps been going? If
you look into the eyes of young people and
you see the promise that they hold, and
in a way it's mirrored back to you, is the
expectation that whatever you
think is hard is not that hard.
I also think that.
I think we should be a bit
outraged, but I think there's a sort
of love that can come from outrage.
Sort of creativity that can come from
outrage and definitely a sense of.
Of being in this together because we
are talking about people's lives.
Talking about lives,
yeah, and futures,
and we're talking about dignity.
And I will not ever stop
caring about dignity.
And I hope that all of us feel that way.
So Seattle Children's is not disputing
what it calls Doctor Danielson's
experience during his time there.
In fact, many of his claims are
confirmed in an independent report
commissioned by the hospital.
The summary that's been released
contains 11 key findings and
88 subsequent recommendations.
The hospital says it's not releasing
additional information to protect
the privacy of those who had the
courage to tell their stories.
It's frustrating having had a
child who's been a patient at
children. To not have access to the full
report, what more can you tell us about
this report? Yeah, a lot of people
are frustrated with that choice,
so let's talk about the report.
It was an independent report done by a
prestigious law firm led by a former
US Attorney General Eric Holder,
and it will be the basis of an action
plan that Seattle Children's is
going to roll out next Wednesday.
So they said to look for that,
and it will be comprehensive,
extensive, and they hope it will
begin to address the systemic racism.
That the report says exists fascinating.