The investigation comes after Charles Johnson filed lawsuits following the death of his wife Kira after she gave birth to their second son together in April 2016.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is facing a federal civil rights investigation for the way it treats Black women who give birth at the Los Angeles hospital, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed to multiple outlets.
The investigation comes after Charles Johnson filed lawsuits against the institution following his wife Kira Dixon Johnson’s death at age 39 after she gave birth to their second son together in April 2016.
“My wife would be here with her boys if it wasn’t for the color of her skin,” Johnson said at a press conference, per NBC News, echoing claims made in his complaint against the hospital. “After allowing my wife to bleed and suffer needlessly while my family and myself begged and pleaded with them to simply just treat her with dignity and respect.”
In 2019, Johnson told ABC News that he asked medical staff to help his wife after he saw blood in her catheter following her scheduled C-section. However, he said, “his pleas were ignored for hours.”
Kira died of internal bleeding when taken into a procedure room 10 hours later, Johnson said.
“The room started to look like a murder scene, a crime scene,” Angelique Washington, a former surgical technician in the operating room with Kira, said in a video deposition via NBC News. “Blood everywhere. I knew it didn’t feel good.”
According to the outlet, Johnson filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai and his wife’s doctor in March 2017 for wrongful death and emotional distress. He also filed a civil rights lawsuit against the hospital in May 2022, alleging racism and discrimination over their treatment of his wife.
Johnson told ABC News that both lawsuits were “resolved.”
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