DEARBORN — A local Arab American man contacted The Arab American News last week regarding an incident that took place at Oakwood Hospital, claiming he had allegedly been mistreated and racially profiled by staff and security over a misinterpretation of a conversation about an iPhone application. 

According to the local man, who wished to remain anonymous, he had been visiting the hospital daily for over a month and a half because his mother had been in the Intensive Care Unit on the 3rd floor, where she had been recovering from a broken leg, punctured lung and a stroke.

The man, who has a medical background and is a business owner in Dearborn,  says he had made numerous attempts to develop good relations with the nurses and staff at the hospital for the sake of his mother. He claims on numerous occasions, the staff would gladly accept chocolate from him. Around Christmas, he even gave them a gift basket of Godiva chocolate. 

However, things took a different turn one particular afternoon when the man had been chatting with two female nurses and one male nurse in the lobby. He claims he was entertaining himself with a new application he had downloaded on his iPhone and the nurses seemed curious about it. The app, “Action Movie FX,” can be downloaded from the Apple store for free by any iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch user, and allows an individual to take a picture and then turn it into a cinematic scene which can include explosions, helicopters or thunderstorms.

The man claims he  was showing the nurses how the app functioned, by taking a picture of the nursing station and including it into a scene that displayed rockets exploding.  He claims the nurses seemed amused by it, asking him to see it more than once, and laughing it off.

“Action Movie FX” is an iPhone app that can be downloaded for free at the Apple store, presented by the makers of “Call of Duty.”

But that was not the tone he was met with the following day when he returned to the hospital, the man claims. When he arrived to the ICU unit, he was allegedly confronted by security, who told him the nurses felt threatened by his presence. The man claims security was not being cooperative with his explanation and had followed him around the hospital like he was a threat.

“I tried explaining to security that it was just an iPhone app, but they were not being cooperative. They told me ‘the nurses are scared of you, they are afraid you are a threat to them,’” the local man stated.

The man says things got so tense that he wasn’t even allowed to communicate with any of the nurses regarding his mother’s health, which made for a more uncomfortable environment. He says in the days following the incident, every time he came to the hospital, security followed him to his mothers room and stayed near his side until he left. The man claims he had felt so uncomfortable there, that he decided to discharge his mother from the hospital.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, this has nothing to do with a game on a phone. This game is available on all iPhones and it’s made by a U.S. company and downloaded for free. You want to tell me the nurse does not know the difference between a game and a real threat?” the man stated.

Oakwood Hospital had also contacted Dearborn Police regarding the incident, The man says when a Dearborn officer contacted him to investigate what had occurred, the officer laughed it off.  After the man explained the incident to the officer in detail, the department decided they were not going to file a police report.

 Calls were made to Oakwood Hospital’s Public Relations Department regarding this story, and a statement was issued to The Arab American News by the department. For the sake of the man’s wishes to remain anonymous, his name has been removed from the statement.

“The privacy and safety of our patients, employees and anyone within an Oakwood facility is our highest priority. We are aware of the allegations presented…and we vehemently reject any claims of racial or religious discrimination. [The local man] knowingly used a photo of an actual nursing station within our hospital to depict a violent “blow-up” scenario in an application on his phone. Given the seriousness of such an act, our staff took the appropriate steps outlined in our policies to immediately notify the authorities. Both the Arab American and Muslim communities have been an integral part of Oakwood Healthcare for more than 50 years and they have significantly contributed to who we are today as an organization.  To suggest otherwise goes against everything we stand for and believe in as a community partner here in Dearborn,” Oakwood Hospital stated.  

The local man says he has yet to receive an apology from Oakwood regarding the way he had been treated, despite getting in contact with department heads. He thinks the hospital’s staff should undergo training in order to avoid more instances like this.

“They have to know that this can not be tolerated. If a nurse cannot tell the difference between a game and a real threat, then she is a threat being there in the first place. This is a big problem for all the patients and their safety. God knows what else they could do if they made such a big issue about a small game, Imagine what they could do to patients based on their name, color or religion,” the local man stated.