FLINT, Mich. — A nurse has filed a lawsuit against Hurley Medical Center (HMC), claiming that the hospital would not let her treat an infant because she is black.
Tonya Battle, 49, worked as a registered nurse in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit when a father approached Battle’s supervisor and said he did not want black nurses to care for his newborn, according to the lawsuit. The supervisor then reassigned the infant to a different nurse, MLive.com reports.
Additionally, Battle claims that although an HMC attorney told the father, who is not named in the lawsuit, that the request could no longer be granted, hospital officials still carried out the demand.
Battle, who worked for HMC for 25 years, seeks damages for her distress, harassment and humiliation.
