April Valentine Obituary, Death – On January 17, almost 200 of April Valentine’s friends and family members gathered in front of Centinela Hospital to demand justice for her. Valentine died on January 10 after giving birth in the hospital’s maternity department. Valentine’s cousin, Mykesha Mack, said that Aniya will have to grow up without her mother around. Mack stood on the stairs leading up to the emergency room of Centinela Hospital, which had a sign that said it was one of the “Top 100 Hospitals in the Country.”
Valentine’s best friend Cheyenne Ne’Shay said on social media that Valentine complained for hours about having numbness in her legs. However, Valentine’s family was not allowed to talk about the details of how she died. Michael Mack, another of Valentine’s cousins, said that the group’s goal is to raise awareness about this issue in the hopes that it will lead to institutional reform in all institutions. We can’t talk about this topic right now because the circumstances of her death are still being looked into.
On the website of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office, Valentine does not seem to be on the list of people who need to be checked out. The day after Valentine died, her friends took to social media to express their shock and sadness over what had happened to her. Ne’Shay wrote the day after Vakentine died that “she and her boyfriend complained for hours to the nurses that she couldn’t feel her legs, and they told her they wouldn’t call the doctors because they’d get mad.” Ne’Shay was talking about what happened the day before Vakentine died. “One of my best friends has died.”
It wasn’t clear if she felt numb before or after she gave birth to her living daughter. Valentine’s problems seemed to be the same as those that can happen after a caesarean section, which is more commonly called a “C-section.” The same tragedy happened to another Black woman who got the treatment and died soon after. On April 12, 2016, Kira Johnson went to Cedars-Sinai to be admitted for a planned cesarean section.
Her husband, Charles Johnson, said that he and his wife were in a situation very similar to this one when he found blood in his wife’s catheter and begged the doctors to help. He said that the doctors told him that his wife was not a “priority” at the time and that by the time she was taken back to the operating room, it was too late to save her life. After the C-section, the doctors found three liters of blood inside of her abdomen. During the Johnson case, a nurse testified that “when things go wrong, we just send them to ICU, and if they die there, it doesn’t count against us.”
People from the community came out to show their support for bringing more attention to the fact that black women in California are four to six times more likely to die during childbirth than white women. Statistics show that this difference does exist. Gloria J. Davis, who works at the Girls Club in Los Angeles, says, “I hear about this injustice against Black women, and it’s horrible that it’s still happening in 2023.” This just shows that doctors don’t listen when Black women say they are in pain.
Also there was activist Najee Ali, who was there to support Valentine’s family and bring attention to the terrible thing that happened to Valentine. Ali said, “Ms. Davis asked me to come support the family, and it’s no secret that Black women are disproportionately hurt by bad health care and don’t get the same fairness as white women.” The hospital hasn’t made any official announcements about Valentine’s death.