Rural Hospitals Are Shuttering Their Maternity Units

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/health/rural-hospitals-pregnancy-childbirth.html

No paywall
https://archive.is/WUptQ


TOPPENISH, Wash. — Three days before Christmas, the only hospital in this remote city on the Yakama Indian Reservation abruptly closed its maternity unit without consulting the community, the doctors who delivered babies there or even its own board.

At least 35 women were planning to give birth at Astria Toppenish Hospital in January alone, and the sudden closure — which violated the hospital’s commitment to the state to maintain critical services in this rural area — threw their plans into disarray.

Victoria Barajas, 34, expecting her first child, scrambled to find a new doctor before her due date, Jan. 7. Jazzmin Maldonado, a 29-year-old schoolteacher due to give birth soon, wondered how she could make it to a distant hospital in time.

After an earlier miscarriage, doctors had placed a stitch in her cervix to prevent a second one, and the stitch would have to come out fast once labor began.

Astria Toppenish Hospital is one of a string of providers across the nation that have stopped providing labor and delivery care in an effort to control costs — even as maternal deaths increase at alarming rates in the United States, and as more women develop complications that can be life-threatening.

*snip*

[XanaDUer2]

1. America is really a fucked-up mess, isn't it? Nt

[OMGWTF]

11. If I didn't live here and have family I would never come here. It is a fked-up mess.

Thanks to Rethuglicans. They are why we are a shithole nation. VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!

[Baitball Blogger]

2. This fact needs to be given attention:

"...even as maternal deaths increase at alarming rates in the United States,"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

4. yes indeed

[OMGWTF]

12. And pregnancies increase due to forced birthers.

[roamer65]

3. I figured it was due to the declining birth rate.

Rural depopulation definitely wouldn’t help either.

[Hekate]

14. Doctors who help women who might die can be charged with feticide & the hospitald sued

Okay?

[CatWoman]

5. i have 9 siblings; i am number four in order of birth

and I was the last to be delivered at home via a midwife.

after me my mom delivered in the hospital.

i'm wondering if this could pave the way of them returning, since the hospital is doing away with maternity services?

[SharonAnn]

7. That's great if it's a "normal" birth. But if complications occur, you need a hospital QUICKLY!

[CatWoman]

10. don't know if I told you this before

but my sister right before me was named Sharon Ann

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Ferrets are Cool]

8. My first thought? Where are all those fucking hypocrital repugs who are all about the unborn?

Oh wait, THESE unborn can't be used as political tools so they are of no use.

[wnylib]

9. Could it be that complications in pregnancy

are part of the reason for closing maternity units? With restrictions on reproductive health care in several states, some hospitals might not want to take risks in treating problem pregnancies. Maybe small hospitals with limited budgets see closing maternity units as a double benefit - reducing costs and reducing the political/legal risks of complicated pregnancies.

[OMGWTF]

13. Yes.

[Hekate]

15. Better to let women die. Goddess, I can't breathe...

[wnylib]

17. Maybe some ob/gyn doctors and staff

could band together to create their own clinics. Money to buy necessary equipment and maintain themselves would be an obstacle, unless some interested parties could raise funds.

[dalton99a]

16. Kick