tagged w/ maternal health
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1,000 women still die every day in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications that are preventable with skilled clinicians, drugs and equipment. 80% of all maternal deaths globally can be attributed to 5 basic risks: hemorrhage, infection, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders and obstructed labor.1,000 women still die every day in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications... more
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India holds a dubious distinction of the highest death rate for children under five and the highest maternal deaths in the world. It has a shortage of 2.6 million health workers, according to a new report released by Save the Children, an international NGO. The report by Save the Children India said that at 900,000 a year, India has the largest number of newborn deaths and is among five countries that account for more than half of the world’s 3.3 million newborn deaths. The others are Nigeria, Pakistan, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This falls way below the World Health Organization health worker threshold of 2.3 health workers per 1000 people. Seven Indian states rule the charts for this unfortunate cause and...Read more here-
http://www.iblog4acause.com/2011/09/26-million-health-workers-shortage-in.htmlIndia holds a dubious distinction of the highest death rate for children under five... more
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by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Flickr user DonkeyHotey, via Creative CommonsWith millions of Americans out of work, House Republicans are focusing in on real priorities: decimating private abortion coverage and crippling public funding for abortion, as Jessica Arons reports in RH Reality Check.
In AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte notes that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3, also redefines rape as “forcible rape” in order to determine whether a patient is eligible for a Medicaid-funded abortion. Under the Hyde Amendment, government-funded insurance programs can only cover abortions in cases of rape and incest, or to save the life of the mother. Note that the term “forcible rape” is legally meaningless. Supporters of the bill just want to go on the record as saying that a poor 13-year-old girl pregnant by a 30-year-old should be forced to give birth.
Feminist blogger Sady Doyle has launched a twitter campaign against the bill under the hashtag #dearjohn, a reference to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Tweet to let him know how you feel about a bill that discriminates against 70% of rape victims because their rapes weren’t violent enough for @johnboehner, append the hashtag #dearjohn.
Everybody chill out
A federal judge in Florida ruled the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional on Monday. However, as political scientist and court watcher Scott Lemieux explains at TAPPED, the ruling is not necessarily a death blow to health care reform:
[T]his ruling is less important than the controversy it will generate might suggest. Many cornerstone programs of the New Deal were held unconstitutional by lower courts before being upheld by the Supreme Court. This ruling tells us nothing we didn’t already know: There is a faction of conservative judges who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Unless this view has the support of five members of the Supreme Court — which I still consider very unlikely — it won’t matter; Vinson’s reasoning would have a much greater impact if adopted by the Court, but for this reason it is even less likely to be adopted by higher courts.
In a follow-up post, Lemieux explains the shaky legal reasoning behind Judge Robert Vinson’s decision. The judge asserts bizarrely that being uninsured has no effect on interstate commerce. That premise is objectively false. Health insurers operate across state lines and the size and composition of their risk pools directly affects their business.
Given the glaring factual inaccuracies, Judge Vinson’s decision may be overturned by a higher court before it gets to the Supreme Court.
Scamming Medicare
Terry J. Allen of In These Times win’s the headline of the week award for an article entitled “Urology’s Golden Revenue Stream.” She reports that increasing numbers of urologists are investing millions on machines to irradiate prostate cancer in the office. The doctors can bill Medicare up to $40,000 per treatment, but they have to use the machines a lot to recoup the initial investment. So what does this mean for patients? Allen explains:
Rather than accessing centralized equipment and sharing costs, physicians are concentrating their own profits by buying expensive in-practice technologies that pay off only if regularly used. One result is overtreatment, which is driving up health care costs, exposing patients to unnecessary radiation and surgeries, and is frequently no better than cheaper approaches.
One third of Medicare patients with prostate cancer undergo the expensive IMRT therapy, as the procedure is known. In 2008, Medicare shelled out over a billion dollars on a treatment that has not shown to be any better for patients than less expensive therapies.
Obstetric fistula in the developing world
Reproductive Health Reality Check is running a special series on the human rights implications of obstetric fistula. Fistula is a devastating complication of unrelieved obstructed labor in which the baby’s head gets stuck in the birth canal and presses against the soft tissues of the pelvis. If labor goes on long enough, the pressure will starve the pelvic tissues of blood, and they will die, creating a hole between the vagina and the bladder, and/or between the vagina and the rectum. Fistula patients face lifelong incontinence, chronic pain, and social ostracism.
The condition is virtually unknown in the developed world, where women with obstructed labor have access to cesarean delivery. However, an estimated 2 million women, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, have untreated fistulas with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year. Without reconstructive surgery, these women will be incontinent for life.
Sarah Omega, a fistula survivor from Kenya, tells her story. Omega sustained a fistula when she delivered her first child at the age of 19. She suffered for 12 years before she finally obtained the surgery she needed. As Agnes Odhiambo explains in another installment in the series, fistula is a symptom of a dysfunctional health care system. Women suffer needlessly because they can’t get access to quality health care.
The most likely victims of fistula are the most vulnerable members of their respective communities. Early childbearing increases a woman’s risk of fistula. Pregnant rape victims may face even greater barriers to a safe delivery, thanks to the social stigma that accrues to victims of sexual violence in many societies. (Not to mention any names, House Republicans…)
Preventing and repairing obstetric fistula is a major human rights issue. The U.S. should make this effort a high priority for foreign aid.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Flickr user DonkeyHotey, via... more
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On a recent winter morning in the tiny Bolivian village of Tayasigua, Deogracia Otega sat on a wooden bench, nervously clutching her purse.
The indigenous Guarani woman with tired eyes said that it burned when she urinated and her lower abdomen ached. "I'm worried about cervical cancer," said the 45 year-old grandmother of two as she waited to consult the doctor setting up opening up shop in the one-room brick school house behind her.
Half an hour later, Otega emerged, relieved. She was in the clear for now, she said. "I didn't even know what a cervix was before the mobile health units starting arriving," she added with an embarrassed half-smile:
Otega's medical care was likely not discussed at the recent U.N. summit on the progress of the world in meeting Millennium Development Goals by the deadline year in 2015. But it could have been. Her consult is an example of what's helping South America's poorest country advance in its maternal health goals, as well improve its populations overall sexual and reproductive health.
Read the full story on Women's eNews: http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/101228/pickups-mobilize-bolivias-maternal-healthcareOn a recent winter morning in the tiny Bolivian village of Tayasigua, Deogracia Otega... more
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Congresswoman Lois Capps of California couldn't have been less surprised when the recent U.N. development goals review conference spotlighted faltering financial commitments to maternal health in the developing world.
Already aware of the problem, Capps this spring introduced a bill prodding the United States to make good on its commitment to Millennium Development Goal No. 5, which seeks to reduce maternal deaths by 2015 by three-quarters from 1990 levels. Called the Improvements in Global Maternal and Newborn Health Outcomes While Maximizing Successes Act, it's better known as the Global Moms Act.
Read the rest: http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/101006/us-health-bills-show-c-sections-cut-two-waysCongresswoman Lois Capps of California couldn't have been less surprised when the... more
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A precocious, gender-sensitive civil society movement stirring in Bangladesh since the 1970s is expected to make the country a star among nations meeting here in September to re-affirm 15-year development pledges that face a deadline in 2015.
Bangladesh, the world's most densely-populated country faces the worst consequences of climate change, but is nonetheless on track to meet the majority of the eight Millennium Development Goals, usually called MDGs, laid out by the United Nations 10 years ago, said Abdul Momen, Bangladesh's envoy to the U.N.
Poverty reduction, for instance, is expected to be half of 1990 levels in five years' time. Child and infant mortality stand to decrease by the targeted rate of two-thirds.
Read the rest: http://www.womensenews.org/story/international-policyunited-nations/100707/bangladesh-development-star-doesnt-shine-womenA precocious, gender-sensitive civil society movement stirring in Bangladesh since the... more
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More than 3,500 women from 146 countries converged on the nation's capital this week for a second major conference on maternal mortality.
They celebrated benchmark achievements in reducing maternal and infant mortality and faced stubborn failures at the same time.
Melinda Gates, a major philanthropist in this field, announced $1.5 billion in new support from the Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, for programs targeting women's health. She said she hoped that donation would spur the G-8 summit in Canada on June 25, where leaders of eight of the world's most industrialized nations will meet, to step up in a similar fashion.
Gates pointed out that 350,000 women still die every year giving birth and that 3 million newborns die annually.
Read the Full Story at Women's eNews http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/100609/global-maternal-health-gets-2nd-big-checkupMore than 3,500 women from 146 countries converged on the nation's capital this... more
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Nearly 67,000 women - almost entirely poor women from developing countries - die every year from unsafe abortion, devastating the children, families and communities for whom they are caretakers. Millions more are injured. These women - daughters, sisters, wives and mothers - are the core of their families and communities.
"Tigist" is the story of one Ethiopian girl who could have become one of those statistics. The film follows one 17-year old girl's journey to access a safe abortion in a country that holds one of the highest rates of maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions.
Luckily there is hope. Access to safe abortion care can prevent millions of pregnancy-related deaths. In Ethiopia, a recent change in legislation gave Tigist the opportunity to receive a safe abortion.
But is the law enough?
Watch the film and learn more by visiting www.NotYetRain.org.Nearly 67,000 women - almost entirely poor women from developing countries - die... more
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Saio Marah, nine months pregnant and two days into labor, lay on a hospital bed and groaned loudly with each contraction.
She had arrived at the rural hospital earlier on the back of a motorcycle, about the only public transport available in this muddy little town in the distant back-country bush of one of Africa's poorest nations.
Now, in a dark and hot labor ward with rain blowing in the open windows and puddling on the floor, Marah grimaced as James Konteh slapped on rubber gloves and examined her.
Konteh, an ophthalmologist by training, is one of only two doctors who serve 300,000 people in this remote district, so he has become a de-facto obstetrician.
He placed a plastic Pinard stethoscope -- a cheaper, funnel-shaped alternative to a standard stethoscope--to Marah's massive belly and listened.
"The fetal heart rate is very rapid," he said. "The labor is obstructed. The baby is in distress so we must operate right away."
Konteh pulled out his cellphone and began dialing his four surgical nurses. It was 6:30 p.m., and they had all gone home when their 10-hour shifts ended a half-hour earlier.
Marah had waited too long to come to the hospital, and now the baby, her first, was in trouble. The surgery was urgent, but it would take time to get the operating room team back.
"What can I do?" Konteh said. "There's nobody here."
The nurses hooked up an IV to increase Marah's fluids, hoisted her onto a gurney and rolled her into an empty waiting room. She lay there naked, covered loosely by a small cloth, and waited for her caesarian section.
"I haven't been able to sleep for three days," she said. "The pain is too much."
It was a Monday evening, and her husband, Mohamed Barrie, said she had gone into labor on Saturday. Both of them were worried about the expense of going to the hospital, he said, and were sure she could deliver easily enough without assistance from hospital doctors. So they had gone to a neighborhood clinic where a nurse examined her and sent her home.
************CONTINUESSaio Marah, nine months pregnant and two days into labor, lay on a hospital bed and... more
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