May 16, 2015
Former Hospital
Accused of Claiming
Black Infants Were
Dead to Sell Them
to a Family
REPORTED by Nigel Boys
More than 100 women have come forward since the revelation of 76-year-old Zella Jackson Price and her daughter, Diane Gilmore, who were reunited for the first time after almost 50 years since a nurse
at a Missouri hospital claimed Gilmore died shortly after her 1965 birth.
Many women who gave birth at the same hospital claim that they were also told that their children had died shortly after they were born, and many were never allowed to see their deceased children or given death certificates for the baby as in the case of Price.
The latest person who believes that he and his mother were the victims of an alleged cash on delivery” scheme at the Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis, MO is Jessie Ferguson, who is now in his late 50’s. He believes that officials at the hospital lied to his mother, Joyce McKinley, 73, about the death of his twin brother in 1957.
McKinley gave birth to the first of her twin boys in 1957 at the hospital when she was just 15-years-old. She was told that the first twin was stillborn and never thought to question it further, even though it had been a nurse who told her the sad news, not a doctor as was usual protocol.
“The first baby came out and she said he’s dead and got up and ran out the door with him,” McKinley told KTVI. She was never given a death certificate or allowed to bury her child, even though she admits that she never heard him cry.
Ferguson believes that his brother may be alive after being raised by another family. In fact, he thinks that he may have seen him previously. “A guy who looked just like me coming into one of my buildings we stared at each other we didn’t say nothing.”
Homer G. Phillips was opened in 1937 as a blacks-only hospital at a time when the city was segregated. It continued to mainly serve African-American patients even after desegregation in the mid 1950s.
Although the hospital closed in 1979, city officials and lawyers of women who believe they were victims of this heinous act are trying to get to the bottom of what appears to have been a sale of infant black children.
Representing Price, lawyer Al Watkins is fighting to have the birth records of her daughter released so they can gain an understanding of what might have happened almost 50 years ago. “There was absolutely, available on the market, infant black children – pay for play, cash on delivery, you want a baby get some money,” Watkins told the news station.
Watkins has received calls from several other women claiming to have similar stories dating back to the mid-1950s and 60s, wondering if their children may still be alive somewhere.
A recurring story Watkins hears is that normal protocol was not observed with the women because a nurse, not a doctor, told the patients that their child had died. None of them were allowed to see their deceased infants and no death certificates were issued, he added.
Although none of the women are seeking financial gain, Watkins said he plans to file a lawsuit to seek out the birth and death records of these suspicious cases. “These are moms. They are mothers at the end of their lives seeking answers to a lifelong hole in their heart.”
Mary Tillman, a retired physician, who was an intern and did a residency at Homer G. Phillips in the 1960s, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the hospital had protocols and recordkeeping to track mothers and daughters, but she never suspected anything wrong. She did, however, admit that protocol had been broken by a nurse informing the mothers of the death of their child and not a doctor.
Price, who has five other children, said that after she had been told of the death of her infant daughter, she spent the next two days recovering in the hospital surrounded by happy mothers. “It was depressing to see when they rolled the babies in and they were taking them to their mothers, but I didn’t have my baby,” she recalled.
After discovering that her daughter is alive and well, Price said that she is saddened by the lost years she missed with her. “For me not to be able to love on this child like I did with the others, I’m going through a lot of emotions,” she continued. “But I’m so blessed to know that she is alive.”