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The baby was born minutes after the footage was taken
Isabel Keanein New York Monday 24 November 2025 14:18 GMTComments
open image in galleryA video of a pregnant woman seemingly being ignored by nurses at a Dallas hospital has gone viral, with many online expressing outrage over the incident (TikTok @Kashman2814)
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A video of a Black woman seemingly being ignored by a nurse while she is minutes away from giving birth at a Texas hospital has sparked widespread outrage – and prompted her family to take legal action.
Viral TikTok footage shows Kiara Jones screaming in pain as a nurse at Dallas Regional Medical Center asks her intake questions, including her due date. Jones cries out, “Right now!” as she twists and turns her body in distress while sitting in a wheelchair.
Jones’ mother, Kash Manuel, who shared the footage taken on November 11 on TikTok, can be heard asking the nurse whether she treats all her patients like this, “or just the Black ones.”
The nurse continues to fill out paperwork on the computer without giving her an answer.
Within the clip, Manuel notes that hospital staff had Jones wait half an hour in the waiting room before admitting her. Her son was born 12 minutes after the footage was taken, according to the video.
open image in galleryA video of a pregnant woman seemingly being ignored by nurses at a Dallas hospital has gone viral, with many online expressing outrage over the incident (TikTok @Kashman2814)In a separate video, Jones’ mother says they rushed her to the hospital after she began active labor at home, and were met with obstacles before even encountering the allegedly unresponsive nurse.
“She called ahead of time, so we know they are expecting us,” she said, adding that once they got to the emergency room, nurses told them to head to the front of the hospital instead.
Even as the expectant mother was screaming, “The baby is coming,” staff at the hospital refused to take any action until she signed the paperwork, Jones’ mother said.
“Do not go to this hospital. This hospital is ghetto as hell. They do not care about Black women or their babies,” Jones’ mother said in the clip. “This is crazy. I read about this stuff all the time, but to see this firsthand. This lady did not care. None of them.”
In a GoFundMe set up by Jones’ mother, she writes that her daughter was “subjected to trauma commonly faced by women.”
“It is most unfortunate that the numbers affect women of color in frequency and severity more. Kiara is now in that number,” she added.
Internet users also expressed outrage over the incident, urging the family to seek legal counsel.
“Medical racism. There is no excuse for this,” one commentator put simply.
Another chimed in: “As a nurse, this is beyond upsetting. We know the screams and signs of active labor, yet she’s blatantly ignoring them all.”
open image in galleryInternet users were quick to slam the hospital and the nurse involved for their mistreatment of the mother (TikTok @Kashman2814)“She did that on purpose. I’ve never seen a mom in active labor not be rushed into the delivery suites,” another person noted.
The family is now looking into legal action they could take, and is being represented Chicago civil rights law firm Romanucci and Blandin, their lawyers told Fox 4 News.
“The law firms are exploring all legal remedies in this case and are becoming increasingly concerned with the disparity and the level of care being provided to people of color versus those who are not,” their lawyers said in a statement.
The viral video also caught the attention of local lawmakers, who are now calling for change. Texas Rep. Rhetta Bowers, a Democrat, told Fox the issue hits close to home.
“I am a Black mom that has her own personal story, and certainly that is even further why I could feel her pain,” Bowers said. “We have to make sure that, not only at the state level but at the federal level, that we are certainly addressing this issue.”
The hospital told Fox it is reviewing the situation, but couldn’t share more details due to patient privacy laws. The Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite did not immediately return a request for comment from The Independent.
Both the mother and baby have since been released from the hospital and are recovering at home.
Pregnancy is already deadlier for Black women, especially in the U.S., where Black women died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women around the time of childbirth in 2023, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released earlier this year.
In 2021 and 2022, the maternal death rate for Black women was about 2.6 times higher than white women.
The data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic, at its peak, impacted all pregnant women, but “once we went back to ‘usual activities,’ then the impact of systemic racism and unequal access (to medical care) ... came right back into place,” said Dr. Amanda Williams, interim medical director for the March of Dimes.
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