“Nobody wants women and children to do poorly, but you also can’t lose money year over year on a service line,” said Dr. John Waits, CEO of the nonprofit Cahaba Medical Care
I mean we could if hospitals weren’t profit driven and doctors were State employees, but I mean, what do I know?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And because the county, one of Alabama’s largest, is bordered by another whose hospital also lacks an obstetrics unit, some of those residents are also losing the closest place they could go to deliver their babies.
Physicians currently or formerly affiliated with the Alabama maternity units about to close fear the consequences for pregnant women and babies, especially if people are not able to reach birthing hospitals quickly enough in emergencies.
“People are going to show up delivering in the ER, and you’re going to have bad outcomes,” said Dr. Jesanna Cooper, an OB-GYN who formerly worked at Princeton Baptist Medical Center, the Birmingham hospital closing its maternity services.
Nationally, fewer than half of rural hospitals have labor and delivery services, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a policy-focused nonprofit.
Dr. Rowell Ashford, an OB-GYN with Cahaba who practices at Princeton and Shelby, said that living far from a hospital with obstetrics care can discourage patients from getting health issues checked out.
The hospital — located in an area in which 40% of the residents live in poverty — welcomes doulas, boasts a diverse obstetrics team, has staff specially trained to support moms in breastfeeding and provides water tubs to patients in labor.
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wonder what they’ll do when mothers show up to the ER…
The best they can, which isn’t going to be great. But if Alabama gave enough of a shit, they would do what was necessary to keep those places open.
when will it become cheaper to pay a nurse/doctor for the day under the table for being on call during the last part of the pregnancy to help deliver? with hospital costs in the US and with most of that money not actually going to the doctors, why isnt there more of a black market?
Only because the connotation of a black health market scares consumers I’d imagine. That and the powers that be would crack down on it hard if it grew to any sizable portion.