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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JULY 19, 2020
BY ROSE ADAMS
Protesters and grieving family
members gathered outside a
Bedford-Stuyvesant hospital on
Thursday to call for justice for Sha-
Asia Washington, a 26-year-old
Black woman who died while giving
birth at the medical center on
July 3.
“They killed her,” said Desiree
Williams, the mother of Washington’s
boyfriend, at the protest.
“They know they killed her. My
son is broken down.”
On July 2, Washington and her
boyfriend visited Woodhull Medical
Center, a city-run hospital on
Flushing Avenue. Washington
went into labor the following day,
and shortly before midnight on
July 3, doctors escorted Washington’s
boyfriend out of the room and
gave Washington an epidural despite
her protests, her boyfriend’s
family said.
“They were giving her too
much medication. She said she
didn’t want the epidural, and they
forced it on her,” said Jasmin López,
a close friend of Washington’s
and the sister of her boyfriend.
Almost immediately, Washington’s
boyfriend, Juwan López,
saw doctors rushing Washington
to another room for an emergency
caesarean section, López’s family
said. The baby survived, but Washington
died of cardiac arrest, Jasmin
said.
“She was 26 years old. How
does your heart stop at 26?” said
Jasmin, adding that Washington
had a healthy pregnancy and no
pre-existing conditions. “I lost my
friend, I lost my sister.”
Jasmin said that Washington’s
family conducted an independent
autopsy, which confi rmed that
Washington died from the epidural.
“From the coroner, the answer
was the epidural killed her,” Jasmin
said.
Heart attacks caused by epidurals
are very rare, and are usually
caused by a local anesthetic overdose
or adverse internal reaction,
according to a 2017 study.
News of Washington’s death
and the protest spread on social
media, drawing more than 100
protesters to the hospital’s entrance
at Broadway and Flushing
avenues for the afternoon demonstration.
Attendees held signs saying
“Woodhull has blood on their
hands” and “Black births need
Black doulas,” while the family addressed
the crowd.
“If you knew Sha-Asia, you
loved her,” said José López, Juwan’s
father, who alleges that the
hospital called Sha-Asia’s family
and admitted that their actions
caused her death. “The hospital
admitted it was their fault. They
called the father on the mother’s
side, and they blamed it on themselves.”
Other speakers at the protest
underscored how frequently Black
women die during childbirth. According
to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Black
women are three to four times
more likely than white women to
die from pregnancy complications,
Jasmin Lopez and Jose Lopez, the sister and father of Sha-Asia Washington’s
boyfriend, spoke about her death at the July 9 protest. Photo by Rose Adams
and research suggests that half of
pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
One doula at the protest explained
that hospitals and medical
providers often neglect Black
women’s health by doubting their
claims.
“I’ve seen people criminalized
at bedside. I’ve seen other systems
like child protective services and
others used as a tool to get people to
comply with medical procedures,”
said Chanel Porchia-Albert. “Some
of it centers around delayed care or
no care or not believing a person
when they express something.”
A spokesperson for NYC Health
+ Hospitals, which operates Woodhull,
said that the hospital is conducting
an internal in-depth quality
review of the incident.
‘THEY KILLED HER’
Protesters slam hospital after Black woman dies during childbirth