LA Times: An essential medical device fails people of color. A clinic is suing to fix that

Roots Community Health Center was slammed in 2020, with lines for its COVID-19 testing stations stretching around the block and exam rooms full of people struggling to breathe.

Patient after patient at the East Oakland clinic extended their fingers so that healthcare workers could clip on a pulse oximeter, a device that measures the degree to which red blood cells are saturated with oxygen. For healthy people, a normal “pulse ox” reading is typically between 95% and 100%.