SYDNEY, N.S. — When Nicole Fraser’s 10-month-old daughter got fussy while in the waiting room of the orthopedic clinic at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital Friday morning, she breastfed her.
Wearing a large sweater and tank top, Fraser said she was able to discreetly feed her daughter without “whipping it out” and only the sides of her breast might have been showing.
It was the “natural” thing for Fraser, 24, to do. She has breastfed her daughter from birth and in public many times before.
What wasn’t natural for Fraser was to be recorded breastfeeding by a man she didn’t know, who was sitting across from her.
Fraser said a woman sitting beside the man with two young boys had looked at what the man was doing on his phone and then started yelling at him for recording her.
“He said, ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ with a smug grin” then she (the woman) said to my mom, ‘He is recording your daughter breastfeeding.’ That’s when a man on the other side of the man looked over and said, ‘Oh my God, you are recording her breastfeeding,’” Fraser told the Cape Breton Post.
“It broke my heart instantly, I started crying and having a panic attack. I felt violated and objectified for doing something that’s so natural to do.”
Fraser said more people started to yell at the man, obviously angry, and she went to security to alert them of the escalating situation.
“He said, ‘Well we can’t take his phone and we can’t move him so there’s not a whole lot to we can do. If you are uncomfortable, you can go to the nursing room,’” she said.
“I said, ‘OK, I understand you can’t take his phone but there’s four or five people down there screaming at this man … I really think you should send somebody down there, it’s getting quite loud.’”
She returned to the waiting room but security didn’t come with her and the situation continued to get “very heated,” according to Fraser. That’s when she called her husband and he told her to go back to security and demand police be called.
“I don’t want it to seem like I am defending this man, I am not. I am grateful for all the people who stood up for me and my daughter, but if the wrong person had of been in there someone could have gotten hurt,” Fraser said, admitting she feared things could have turned violent.
Fraser said when she went to security the second time to ask if they were going to come deal with the situation, she was told they were dealing with a code white in the emergency room, where there is a potentially violent person, and couldn’t go to the orthopedic clinic waiting room at that time.
“He said, ‘So there’s no one here who could help you.’ Mind you, when I was standing there, there was three security officers literally standing behind the glass,” she said.
Fraser asked the security guard to call police and she said he told her the police couldn’t do anything and no one would be able to help her.
“It’s a pretty messed up situation … to be in a situation like that where you are not taken seriously and made to feel like you are being a nuisance when there was a disturbance,” she said. “You would at least expect someone to show up.”
Greg Boone, spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Health Authority Eastern Zone, said there are times when situations at the hospital, like a code white or multiple codes at one time, result in no trained staff available to respond to other situations. However, they are looking into what happened Friday after the manager of hospital security and a patient representative met with Fraser and her husband, James Fraser, on Monday.
“NSHA promotes and supports breastfeeding in public spaces. As part of that we provide a breastfeeding friendly environment in our facilities. Mothers are welcome to breastfeed in our public spaces,” he said via email.
“We regret that the mom was made to feel uncomfortable while doing something that is natural, healthy and within her rights. This is a healthy practice that we always support and we apologize for her experience. Recording or taking photos of other people, patients, or their family members is not permitted.”
Boone said the NSHA and the Regional Hospital expect that patients, family members and visitors will not be recorded without permission at any time in the hospital and ask people to not use mobile phones or devices while in treatment areas.
Fraser and her husband said they were pleased with the meeting they had at the hospital and said they were given a verbal apology and told the matter was being investigated.
