A Black woman is highlighting the growing trend of hospital’s providing inclusive hair care products that cater to Black patients.
Katherine Lane who goes by The Kitchen Drawer on TikTok posted a video of herself showing her viewers some of the hair care products and tools her hospital provided her during her stay.
“Y’all tell me why I am at the hospital and asked for a comb just so I could put my lil hair in some braids,” she began her video. “He brought me back all stuff. Like what hospital you know going to give you, like, a bonnet.”
@the_kitchen_drawer Like bby whettt! They lit for that! #fypシ゚viral #fyp #hospital #christiannortheast #stl #fypp ♬ original sound – Katherine Lane
She continued the video, flipping her phone’s camera to show an assortment of hair care products and tools. The items included leave-in conditioners (which she says worked great), bonnets, two types of combs, shampoo, and a durag amongst other things.
At the end of her video, Lane picks up the bonnet again saying, “But who brings this?” in excitement. Her video has been liked over 27,000 times. People in the comments have been leaving messages applauding the hospital’s efforts to take their Black patient’s hair needs into account.
Accounting For Black Hair
A number of Black female healthcare professionals have been working hard to make haircare inclusive within the health sector. In July, 21Ninety reported on the Crown Hair Care project. It was spearheaded by the Patient Care Director at New York Presbyterian (NYP), Felicia C. Alleyne, MSN and Whitney C. Harris, MSN, Manager of Clinical & Community Strategy at the Dalio Center. Together, both healthcare professionals rolled out packs of hair care products and tools for patients.
It is a project they described as “a celebration of Black hair and a normalization of our hair.”
“Hair in the Black community can be a sensitive subject, as it is closely associated with beauty, acceptance, self-esteem, self-image, community identity, and even political action,” Alleyene said.
Other healthcare providers in states like Iowa have also launched their own inclusive haircare projects. Unity Point Health is a hospital in Des Moines, Iowa. It is one of the first to kickstart the program in the state. Unity Point plans to make the hair care packages available in other Unity Point Health hospitals in August.