Nurse Arrested For Reportedly Abusing Seven Babies in the NICU

Allegations that the babies were of Black decent, medical racism and how this ties into America's disastrous healthcare system.

Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman has been arrested for allegedly giving seven babies in the NICU “unexplained fractures.” In 2023, four babies at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, were injured unexplainably, along with three more newborns in November/December 2024.

Although 26-year-old Strotman was arrested and charged with felony child abuse and malicious wounding on Friday, she should’ve been stopped a long time ago.

According to Newsweek, Strotman was put on paid administrative leave for a year after the four 2023 cases of NICU abuses came to light. Despite that, she was allowed to return to work in late 2024, when three additional newborns were injured. Strotman is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but the timeline and implications are incredibly noteworthy.

Most of the parents of the injured babies have chosen to stay anonymous. Still, Dominique and Tori Hackey have spoken out for their son Noah, who sustained a tibia fracture after being completely healthy.

Conversations across X (formerly known as Twitter) are alleging that all of the babies who were injured were Black, but I couldn’t find any official report backing that up. Dominique Hackey is of Black descent, and you can see that in this interview. Since the other families remain anonymous, proving that claim is hard.

Medical Racism

Black women are disproportionately impacted by medical racism in pregnancy care, which can lead to an array of problems. From labeling Black women as “difficult” or “angry” to refusing pain medications when they need them or slow/missed diagnoses, it is not a secret that medical racism is a massive problem in the American healthcare system.

A paper by JAMA Pediatrics also found that Black children are more likely to be physically restrained in emergency rooms than white children. The list of anti-Blackness and discrimination within medicine goes on and on.

The origins of medical racism in obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN) can be traced back to the mid-1800s when the founder, Dr. James Marion Sims, believed that Black women had a higher pain tolerance than white women. He also used enslaved Black women to try out new, painful procedures without anesthesia or pain medication.

We don’t know for sure if all of the seven babies harmed by Strotman were Black, but would it be a surprising revelation if proven true? Not really.

America's Disastrous Healthcare System

It’s no secret that America’s healthcare system is a disaster. The shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the nation’s reaction showed us how much people are fed up. In America, 26 million people are uninsured. This is the lowest uninsured rate in history.

The United States also has some of the worst healthcare in the world. We have the highest rate of preventable and treatment deaths, and we die younger than people in other developed countries. We also rank low in quality of care, even in equity and administrative efficiency. The US spends nearly twice as much on healthcare as other developed countries, yet provides abysmal healthcare.

The whole system works as intended: to maximize profits at the cost of human lives.

In conclusion…

The case of Strotman and the tragic injuries sustained by the babies in her care (allegedly) raises serious concerns about accountability, systemic failure, and potential patterns of medical negligence. It raises questions about the effectiveness of hospital oversight and the prioritization of profit over patient safety within America’s healthcare system.

Until these systemic flaws are addressed, countless vulnerable people will continue to suffer, and the trust between patients and healthcare providers will remain at risk.