My research shows that Jim Crow laws prevented African Americans from having identical healthcare facilities and fairness legislation. The worst results that the Blacks experienced originated from the rules that prevented Blacks’ potential to get ingress to healthcare facilities and proper medical care (Thomas, 2011, p.72). During the Jim Crow era and the period between reform, the African Americans faced legal oppression which altered with their ability to live a life equal to that of the whites.
The limit of African Americans to access medical healthcare resulted in multiple losses of lives. The whites were rejecting the Blacks a uniform life standard. The Supreme Court of the United States, acknowledge segregation laws to proceed in the form of Jim Crow Laws until 1954 decision integrated institutions and reversed the 1896 decision of the supreme court which allowed segregation to take place under the condition that the facilities belonged to the two races.
Segregation in healthcare facilities greatly affected children because access to healthcare was not easy. Franklin Roosevelt created the Georgia Warm Springs rehabilitation centre for polio in the 1920s. The centre only accommodated the White’s policy assuming that the blacks were not prone to the polio attacks. For the Blacks, an infantile Paralysis Centre was founded in 194 (Rogers, 2014 p.63). This juvenile Paralysis centre was t serve as both a professional training centre and a healthcare premise. In her writings, Naomi Rogers writings said that the centre would serve as compensation for the plenty of health facilities that denied offering treatment to the Blacks or even accept the services provided by the Blacks. The institution made it easy for African Americans to seek medical help. In 1954, the black children were included in the national programs for polio. The children of the Whites too were in, and there was no discrimination.
The American Red Cross dismissed African American, blood donors. In 1942, a new policy was set to separate both the blood donations of the Whites and Blacks. The plan was ironic in that an African American doctor known as Doctor Drew, was in charge of the first vast-scale blood bank which aided in the coming up of the American Red Cross blood bank for the United States military. Dr Drew was hurt by the fact that African American Donors were rejected and the policy of segregating the blood of both the Whites and Blacks, making him quit from his work at the American Red Cross. In his speech during the Spingarn Medal acceptance speech, Drew spoke against the issue of blood donation separation (Swanson, 2014, p.133). The New York Times reported in their article that Red Cross was to use blood from the Blacks. However, the blood from the two races was to be processed separately. The White’s blood could be used to the African Americans, but the blood of the African American was not to be used on the whites under any situation.
The families of the African Americans had to bear the deaths of their loved ones because of the states’ laws. An African American Scholar by the name Du Bois suffered the loss of his son to Diphtheria. In his days of living, Du Bois lived in worry for having no proper access to proper medical care. The chances are that the son of Du Bois would survive if only he received medical assistance. The loss of his child drove Du Bois to write about death in an essay with the title, composition, the Passing of Firstborn (Blum &Young, 2009, p.18). He expressed his sorrow in his piece saying that he said his little boy leapt like a star which travels at night after his breath went fast and faster and later it took a pause. Du Bois had made an effort to seek medical help from one of the few African American medics, but he did not succeed. On the other hand, White doctors were not, at will to treat the Blacks or even their children, a situation that made Du Bois’ son die without receiving any medical assistance.
The laws of Jim Crow obstructed the Blacks’ ability to ingress the right treatment. The African Americans would only receive treatment after all the whites have been put to cure as per the Mississippi law and it would lead to deaths of the very sick Blacks (Thomas, 2011, p.79). At one point, the males from the Black race were denied penicillin, yet they were being used as specimens for the study of Syphilis. Over a hundred men lost their lives to severe symptoms of the disease. Also, African Americans were not given the right facilities for treatment. They lacked hospitals and means of transportation to get to the hospital for treatment, especially in rural areas. In his writings, Thomas says that most of these African Americans were based in rural areas, and they were not well up.
The African Americans made it their duty to beat the health challenges in cases of child delivery by being the midwives and caregivers to those who did not quickly get medical assistance. The midwives nursed the newborn babies and their mothers as well. (Fraser, 2009, p.67), talks about a lady named Lucretia who was a mother of eleven children who also served as a midwife. The duties of a midwife were to ensure that she teaches pregnant women about the care they should put into practice during pregnancy and inform them what actual childbearing is all about and the aftercare of the infant. Lucretia readily responded to women who experienced child loss for she too had lost six babies. Lucretia used her medicinal knowledge to assist African American women. The American Medical Association did not take the roles of African Americans with gentleness. Instead, they gave false information that the African American midwives were into malpractices. This discrimination was extended because they were well skilled, and they were from a different race.
The Medical societies, such as the Medical Association for the Americans, were collective for discriminatory practices in opposition to the Blacks. In 1968, the association abolished racial biases in membership of the Federal Medical Association. This policy kept the Black physicians away from the group in the national directory of physicians. An apology was given in 2008 regarding the discrimination, and it was a stepping stone towards the realization of the American faults as directed to the African Americans (Thomas, 2011, p.79). Thomas further discusses the prejudice that the Blacks experienced in medical associations. Dr Drew was the first Black medic to challenge the American Medical Associations’ policy of discrimination after he was denied membership to the organization. Also, the Columbia Medical Society did not embrace the Association to have Black members.
The reactions towards segregation by most African American were in different ways. At this time, new policies related to health, better medical training, and personal actions combined to improve the healthcare of African Americans in the South. New deals were on the rise for the national efforts to end regional health and racial gaps (Thomas, 2011, p.75). Governmental aid and funding would ensure that the Black hospitals have had their facilities in place such as the hospital beds. The federal association for the advancement of the Blacks aided to curb segregation and gave way for Civil Rights. The association held campaigns that led to equal funding of education for both the Whites and Blacks.
In the mid-1960s, desegregation eventually took place in healthcare. Healthcare policies were put down in ways that favoured the Blacks. The national courts ruled in favour of segregation, to show how tough it was for the African Americans to come into terms with the segregation laws that performed in opposition (Thomas, 2011, p.72). The government’s primary role was to embrace the former minorities into society to help them re-shape the government and overcome all the previous brutality of being the minority. Jim Crows rules affected the medical access output of both the Whites and Blacks. However, during the period of “Deluxe Jim Crow”, policies were set up to achieve fairness of the African Americans with the system of segregation. We are closer to full national equality though we the United History still takes us back to the pains of inequality and racism.