In the video, the woman is writhing in pain.
She screams, twisting in a hospital wheelchair, while a hospital employee calmly asks her questions.
“When’s your due date?” “How many times have you been pregnant?” “You have two babies at home?” “Who’s your doctor?”
A voice behind the camera speaks up. “Y’all treat all your patients like this, or just the Black ones?”
The woman’s mother, who posted the now-viral video, wrote in the social media post that the medical staff at Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite made her daughter wait in the emergency room for more than 30 minutes while in active and obvious labor. According to the post, the woman gave birth 12 minutes later.
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The Dallas Morning News reached the woman in the video, and her family, by text. The News is not publishing the woman’s name because she and her family did not agree to an interview.
When asked about the video, a spokesperson for Dallas Regional Medical Center, Vince Falsarella, sent an email statement on behalf of the hospital.
“We are committed to providing compassionate, high-quality care to every person who comes through our doors,” the statement said, “and we are reviewing this situation to understand what occurred.”
In the statement, the hospital declined to comment any further, citing patient privacy laws. Falsarella did not respond to follow-up questions about what steps the hospital is taking in its review.
While the hospital has remained tight-lipped, the video has taken on a life of its own.
The social media post, from Nov. 13, went viral. In about one day, the main post alone garnered more than 25 million views and more than 100,000 comments. After a week, it was up to 60 million views and more than 175,000 comments. Some follow-up videos have racked up millions of views, too.
In one follow-up video, the woman’s mother explained more about what happened and said the hospital’s medical providers “do not care about Black women or their babies.”
“I read about stuff like this all the time, but to see this firsthand?” she said. “This lady did not care. None of them.”
This week, another Black woman went public with her birth story, too. Mercedes Wells, who lives in Illinois, told ABC News that she was discharged from an Indiana hospital while in labor. Then, while en route to another hospital, Wells said, she delivered her baby in the car. The Wells family took video at the hospital and in the car.
The two stories have resonated in part because of well-documented racial disparities in medical outcomes.
Research has shown that Black patients, especially Black women, are more likely to experience unfair treatment in medical settings.
Nationwide, maternal and infant mortality rates are significantly higher for Black women than for their white counterparts. Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and their infants’ mortality rate is more than doubled.
Within that context, the Mesquite video has become a rallying cry for the medical mistreatment of Black women.
Social media commenters reacted to the video with shock, with some calling for the woman to report the hospital staff or sue the hospital.
Through social media, a group of local residents have responded to the video with a series of “peace walks” to the Mesquite hospital.
The video has spurred comments from elected officials, too, such as state Rep. Linda Garcia, a Democrat from Mesquite. Garcia’s office wrote in a Tuesday statement that they’re monitoring the hospital’s internal investigation and will “work collaboratively to help restore trust and ensure that every person in our community receives fair and appropriate medical care.”
State Rep. Rhetta Bowers, D-Rowlett, said in a phone interview that she believed there was racial discrimination in how the woman was treated.
“Watching her go through that, it just felt to me like she was being almost ignored and like there was a cold shoulder being given to her,” Bowers said, “like there was no care or compassion in that room.”
In the aftermath of the video, the woman’s family has started a GoFundMe on her behalf.