My Rift With The Hospital
From James Donahue’s Diary
It began with a police report that a black family in South Haven had been hospitalized, some of the children unconscious and in critical condition, after their home was filled with carbon monoxide fumes from a leaking chimney pipe.
At least one of the children was so critical that he was transferred to one of the two large hospitals in Kalamazoo for special treatment. He recovered.
It was such a major story that I contacted the family, got the pictures of everyone still at the house, and got their personal account of what happened. They said they woke up in the night suffering headaches and nausea. Some of the children were so ill that the parents decided that everyone should go to South Haven Community Hospital to be checked out.
A doctor on call that night refused to come in to see the family. It was a small hospital and there was never a doctor on staff around the clock. A nurse checked the family over, found nobody running a fever, and sent them back home with instructions to see a doctor in the morning if the symptoms got worse.
Before the night was over the symptoms got worse. This time an ambulance was summoned and the police and the health department got involved. It seemed that the doctor and medical staff sent the family right back into a house filled with lethal carbon monoxide fumes. It almost killed them.
I wrote my story and even called the hospital, attempting to find out why the family was sent back home. I do not remember what I was told, but I doubt if either the doctor or hospital administrator were willing to give me a statement.
My story and picture ran on the front page. The South Haven Tribune didn’t get on this story until the following day. When that story appeared, it was highlighted by a statement by the hospital administrator attacking me and the News-Palladium by name. He called my story irresponsible and incorrect, and that it unfairly painted the hospital in a dim light. The administrator denied that the family had been turned away and that the hospital could be blamed for any wrongdoing.
I was upset when I saw the Tribune story. I called my editor, Bert Lindenfelt, to told him what happened. I will never forget Bert’s response. Once assured that I had checked and double checked my sources, and that I had attempted to even contact the administrator before filing my story, he told me not to worry about it. “It was publicity,” he said. “One thing you need to remember in this business is that any publicity is good publicity. The Tribune just got a lot of people interested in reading your story.”
The case, which involved the rejection of a poor black family during a time of extreme racial tension across the land, did not end there. A few weeks later I received a telephone call from the president of the hospital board. He said he wanted to personally apologize for the attack that the administrator and the Tribune leveled against me. He commended me for doing an outstanding job of uncovering what had happened to that family. He also notified me that the hospital administrator who caused the furor had been dismissed from his job. Consequently I had another “scoop.”
I was kind and wrote the story straight. I never told the readers why this administrator “resigned his post,” or made any reference to the carbon monoxide poisoning story. I think everybody in town knew the truth, however. I didn’t have to tell them.
I was greeted with a big warm smile when I brought an eight-by-ten glossy print of the family to the house as a personal gift. The blacks in the area knew that I was fair and honest, and that was all they wanted.
Not long after that Doris and I were invited to a special dinner and award ceremony at the Covert school. Covert was at the time an all-black community located a few miles east of South Haven. We attended and found ourselves the only white faces in the room. We expected trouble but the people seemed glad that we would be willing to attend their event. In fact, they introduced us to the whole room during the award ceremonies. We felt quite welcome to have been there that night.
From James Donahue’s Diary
It began with a police report that a black family in South Haven had been hospitalized, some of the children unconscious and in critical condition, after their home was filled with carbon monoxide fumes from a leaking chimney pipe.
At least one of the children was so critical that he was transferred to one of the two large hospitals in Kalamazoo for special treatment. He recovered.
It was such a major story that I contacted the family, got the pictures of everyone still at the house, and got their personal account of what happened. They said they woke up in the night suffering headaches and nausea. Some of the children were so ill that the parents decided that everyone should go to South Haven Community Hospital to be checked out.
A doctor on call that night refused to come in to see the family. It was a small hospital and there was never a doctor on staff around the clock. A nurse checked the family over, found nobody running a fever, and sent them back home with instructions to see a doctor in the morning if the symptoms got worse.
Before the night was over the symptoms got worse. This time an ambulance was summoned and the police and the health department got involved. It seemed that the doctor and medical staff sent the family right back into a house filled with lethal carbon monoxide fumes. It almost killed them.
I wrote my story and even called the hospital, attempting to find out why the family was sent back home. I do not remember what I was told, but I doubt if either the doctor or hospital administrator were willing to give me a statement.
My story and picture ran on the front page. The South Haven Tribune didn’t get on this story until the following day. When that story appeared, it was highlighted by a statement by the hospital administrator attacking me and the News-Palladium by name. He called my story irresponsible and incorrect, and that it unfairly painted the hospital in a dim light. The administrator denied that the family had been turned away and that the hospital could be blamed for any wrongdoing.
I was upset when I saw the Tribune story. I called my editor, Bert Lindenfelt, to told him what happened. I will never forget Bert’s response. Once assured that I had checked and double checked my sources, and that I had attempted to even contact the administrator before filing my story, he told me not to worry about it. “It was publicity,” he said. “One thing you need to remember in this business is that any publicity is good publicity. The Tribune just got a lot of people interested in reading your story.”
The case, which involved the rejection of a poor black family during a time of extreme racial tension across the land, did not end there. A few weeks later I received a telephone call from the president of the hospital board. He said he wanted to personally apologize for the attack that the administrator and the Tribune leveled against me. He commended me for doing an outstanding job of uncovering what had happened to that family. He also notified me that the hospital administrator who caused the furor had been dismissed from his job. Consequently I had another “scoop.”
I was kind and wrote the story straight. I never told the readers why this administrator “resigned his post,” or made any reference to the carbon monoxide poisoning story. I think everybody in town knew the truth, however. I didn’t have to tell them.
I was greeted with a big warm smile when I brought an eight-by-ten glossy print of the family to the house as a personal gift. The blacks in the area knew that I was fair and honest, and that was all they wanted.
Not long after that Doris and I were invited to a special dinner and award ceremony at the Covert school. Covert was at the time an all-black community located a few miles east of South Haven. We attended and found ourselves the only white faces in the room. We expected trouble but the people seemed glad that we would be willing to attend their event. In fact, they introduced us to the whole room during the award ceremonies. We felt quite welcome to have been there that night.