Imagine waking up at 4 AM in labor. Imagine being forced to drive 40 minutes across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to find the closest maternity ward. This has been the fate of many Chestertown women since the Chester River Hospital closed its doors on April 1st of last year. Since then, the closest hospitals where a woman can receive adequate maternal health care are in Annapolis, Christiania, and Philadelphia. Chester River Hospital cited low birth rates at the hospital, 186 babies in 2011, as one of the main reasons for shutting down the obstetrics unit. However, closing the hospital maternity award only contributes to the problems of a community with an aging population. Women are not likely to start families in a place where they cannot safely deliver their children. This prevents development of youth services, allowing Kent County Schools to drop to 21 out of 25 counties in Maryland.
This disregard for the importance of maternal health is not only a problem in our community but stems from a much larger issue on a national and global scale. The United States ranks 50th in the world for maternal health safety and was deemed by Amnesty International as one of the top four countries in need of maternal health reform alongside Peru, Sierra Leon, and Burkina Faso. As one of the most powerful countries in the developed world, it is astounding that the US is unable to provide the basic human right of safe birth especially when we have the means to do so.
The issue of maternal health began to receive attention on a global scale when its improvement was names as the fifth United Nations Millennium Development Goal. However, the United States and many other countries are not on track to reach this goal by 2015. This has lead to two very staggering statistics on global maternal health: 800 women die every day due to pregnancy complications with one woman dying every 90 seconds while giving birth.These numbers present a very bleak picture for maternal health around the worlds but have also given rise to a campaign to increase awareness of the issue.
As part of a class on Human Rights and Social Justice being taught at Washington College, students have developed The 800/90 project to find a solution to maternal health neglect through increased public awareness. Students and community members have been generously giving donations to sponsor a flag for a maternal figure in their life. All proceeds will go to Dr. Maria Boria´s maternal health clinic in Rock Hall where she provides services to women in need. 800 flags will be displayed in the day of the event, March 27th, on one of the campus greens to represent the lives of 800 women that we could save from maternal mortality.At 4pm Dr. Boria will be leading a discussion on her experiences in the field of maternal health. Following this talk will be a 10 minute sit-in to commemorate the women who die every 90 seconds during childbirth.
The ability to bear children is an amazing gift given to women and should not be the cause of fear and anxiety.The issue of maternal health as a basic human right affects everyone, whether it is through your mother, sister, aunt or best friend. However, hundreds of women are dying each day around the world and at home because the importance of maternal health is neglected. Help bring much needed awareness to this amazing cause because in this day and age pregnancy should not be a death sentence.
Alyson Pagano is a student at Washington College
Stephan Sonn says
The UMMC profit model excludes maternity considerations.
Mothers are orphaned by the system.
Should a maternity wing be state funded?
Karen O'Connor says
Ms. Pagano’s article points out a serious shortfall in our healthcare system. I would like to point out that babies can be delivered in Easton MD, , Elkton MD. and Dover DE as well as the other locations she mentions. This is far from ideal, but I wish to remind the community that 22 years ago we had no obstetrical coverage for a period of time, due to a combination of obstetricians dropping their medical malpractice coverage for deliveries, retirements and serious health issues of practitioners. Fortunately, while many women had to deliver children somewhere other than Chestertown, the hospital was able to continue to offer obstetrical services by recruiting Dr.Moorman.
Locally this is a more complex issue than simple economics. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ( “Obamacare”) includes national quality goals. The quality metrics employed are not helpful to smaller services, and quality is a driver for reimbursement in the U. S. system. There needs to be political will to enact serious tort reform in order to change how a service such as obstetrics is viewed; this would make it easier to attract practitioners and to maintain smaller services, and make it harder to close such services.
I applaud Ms. Pagano for bringing attention to the inadequacies of U.S. maternal care. I fervently hope that this begins a conversation that will lead to change.
Mary Wood says
I have been trying unsuccessfully to call attention to the inexcusable lack of maternal services in Chestertown. I lived outside Centreville and that distance seemed far away when i went into labor. The Kent and Queen Anne’s Hospital was created and supported financially by concerned citizens to serve all segments of the population.
Cutting off obstetrical care is willfully negligent. It also limits young families from wanting to settle in this area. I urge citizens to meet with the present hospital to see if there is a way to reinstate this vital service. I have written to each of them.
Keith Thompson says
“Cutting off obstetrical care is willfully negligent. It also limits young families from wanting to settle in this area.”
It’s a bit of a Catch 22 in that if the area consistantly makes it difficult to incorporate or encourage economic activity that attracts young families to the area, you’re always going to have a lack of pediatric and obsterical care in the community. You’re not going to have quality services in an economically disadvantaged community.
Carla Massoni says
Is it possible to have a first-rate maternity service without a first rate neo-natal unit? This is a question not a comment. Thank you.
D Lamotte says
One might also add the increasing incidents attacking women’s reproductive choices and the absurd focus on Planned Parenthood, which has been
at the forefront of providing routine gyn services to women of need.
faith wilson says
Ms. Pagano’s article is well said. I agree with every point she made. In the late seventies and the eighties the obstetric services available in Chestertown were so below par most of us who had children at that time drove to Easton (it gave our husbands a really good excuse to drive really fast since it was so far away).
It wasn’t a great option…
D LaMotte’s observation about the constant barrage on Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive rights is also pertinent. I find it ironic that in a country that is so low down on the scale for the quality of obstetric care, the Republican Party is so adamant about not only forcing women to have babies they may not, and in many cases cannot care for….or pay for.
But the issue that Dr. Pagano brings up about the aging of Kent County is also the most telling. The fact is that Kent County is a place where people come to die, not to be born. 186 babies a year? That is a lot less than the number of deaths in Kent County each year. We have to face that fact. It’s a scary one. When I go to Annapolis, or San Diego, or Boston, I am always amazed at the number of young families and pregnant women I see, only because it’s become a rarer and rarer sight here. It’s sort of sad. But it also makes me realize that if this is the case, that if Kent County (and Chestertown in particular) has become an “old folks home”, that we need to really face that fact and make taking care of the aging the industry for Kent County.
Stephan Sonn says
Reality is a bitter pill but tending to the elderly may suit the workforce of this county.
Might as well go for it . This place is not big on social engineering to buck a trend.