Maternal Health Suffers in Rural America

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Jan 24, 2024

A Good Day To Advocate for Better Healthcare

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Maternal Health in Rural America

More than half (55%) of the nation's rural hospitals don't offer maternity care, as challenging economics and labor shortages force more rural facilities to stop providing labor and delivery services. You can read that as not a profitable service. Hospitals have been increasingly scaling back or cutting maternity services for financial reasons — while demand for obstetrics care rises as more states ban abortion. This according to a report in Axios.

The Axios chart shows the percentage of rural hospitals without maternal services. The darker the color the fewer the services. Note Florida is a whopping 86%.

In more than 10 states, more than two-thirds of rural hospitals don't offer maternity care, according to a new report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. The report also finds that while patients in most urban areas can reach labor and delivery services in less than 20 minutes, rural patients typically have a travel time of 30 minutes or more. The longer the time to get to services, the higher the likelihood of maternal and infant death.

Not having access to maternity care is dangerous and shameful. It is evidence of a system that uses healthcare to generate income instead of a system designed to foster good health outcomes.

Summary

A large part of rural America has no access to maternal healthcare services. In some states more than 80% of the hospitals have no maternal services and in 55% of our rural hospitals such care is ABSENT. The result is that maternal and infant care suffers.

If there were a team of medical professionals in each region of the country who could identify shortfalls in service and who had the resources available to fix those shortages, like maternal healthcare, we wouldn’t have to talk about this.

Good news!! HR 3421, the greatly improved Medicare for All Act, has such an authority in place. I refer you to section 403 for regional authority, and section 611 for global budgets for hospitals and networks and to section 601 for a review of the overall budgets. Here is the text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3421/text.

Let’s remind Congress that they have the tools to fix this.

ACTION

The lack of maternal services in America is disgraceful and dangerous.

You can call/email your Representative in Congress and Senators about it (contact info in the Resources section below) or use RESISTBOT text SIGN PPLINN to 50409 to send them the email below.

“I am your constituent and I just learned that 55% of rural hospitals have NO MATERNAL CARE SERVICES. The services have been removed because they are not a viable profit center. This forces women to drive farther and longer to get care and that increases the likelihood of complications and death for the pregnant person and the baby. None of us deserve that increased risk.

I strongly urge you to get this Universal Healthcare bill, HR 3421, passed to give rural women the care they need and deserve. Thank you.”

Abortion in North Dakota - Doctors Still at Risk

According to an AP story, a North Dakota judge ruled Tuesday that he won’t block a part of a state law that doctors say puts them at risk of prosecution if they perform an abortion to save a patient’s life or health. State District Judge Bruce Romanick said the request for a preliminary injunction “is not appropriate and the Plaintiffs have presented no authority for the Court to grant the specific relief requested.” The lawsuit will continue to play out in court, with a jury trial set for August.

Abortion Trafficking in Tennessee

The Tennessee legislature introduced a bill on Monday that targets adults who take minors out of the state to have an abortion. The bill says that an adult who “recruits, harbors, or transports a pregnant un-emancipated minor within this state for the purpose of” aiding them in getting access to actions that constitute “criminal abortion” under Tennessee law “commits the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor,” despite where the action occurs. Here is a link to the story in the Hill. Idaho has such a law already. We have seen similar laws locally in Texas where, no matter the age, it is illegal to use public roadways to help someone get an abortion. Indiana and Ohio have also pursued criminal proceedings regarding abortion where a minor was concerned.

COVID-19 Good News :)

A report in TIME indicates that our immune systems may be getting smarter every time we encounter COVID-19, a new study suggests. After getting vaccinated and infected, the immune system generates broader defenses against the virus, including against new variants.

Researchers in South Korea compared immune cells in the lab from people with a variety of vaccine and infection histories throughout the different Omicron waves, which began in late 2021 with BA.1. People who had been vaccinated with the original Pfizer-BioNTech series and then got infected with any Omicron variant showed good levels of memory immune cells—called T cells—that defended not only against the variants causing the infection, but also related ones in the Omicron family that came later.

Given the current suite of COVID mutations, it seems that, for now, the combination of vaccines and natural infections is creating a hybrid immunity that seems to be keeping the virus under control for vaccinated people. This is evidence (not proof) that we are on our way to an endemic condition.

RESOURCES

Healthcare Advocacy (Us)

Website

Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare

Healthcare Advocacy Reading List

Find My Elected Officials

Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Contact State and Federal Representatives

Important Healthcare Resources

League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit

Organizations to Contact

National Nurses United Medicare4All

Physicians for a National Health Program

One Payer States

Healthcare Now

Reproductive Health

NARAL - Pro Choice America

Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion

Planned Parenthood

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.

United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.

Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.