Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Current and welcome to next question.
Speaker 1: And that same set of double doors opened, and those
Speaker 1: same two residents came through that set of double doors
Speaker 1: along with another doctor that I had never laid eyes on,
Speaker 1: and they told me that um, she passed and there
Speaker 1: was nothing else that they could do to Saber. I
Speaker 1: just remember the scream that my mother in law at all.
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, her aunt falling to the floor.
Speaker 1: I remember her brother just yelling, and I just remember
Speaker 1: I'm just looking around at all these people that I
Speaker 1: love so much and that love cure so much and
Speaker 1: so much pain, and I'm just standing there in shock.
Speaker 1: It's like no, no, no, no, and just insisting that
Speaker 1: they something didn't happen, because literally twelve hours earlier we
Speaker 1: walked into this hospit but with a woman that and
Speaker 1: only was in good health, it was an exceptional health.
Speaker 1: Not only that, I was just talking to her when
Speaker 1: she walked away from me, I was holding her hand,
Speaker 1: I was talking to her. How did this happen? On
Speaker 1: April two thousand sixteen, Charles Johnson and his wife Kia
Speaker 1: became a part of a shameful statistic America's maternal mortality
Speaker 1: rate in the US and estimated two women die every
Speaker 1: day from pregnancy and childbirth related causes, and six of
Speaker 1: those deaths could have been prevented. What's scary now is
Speaker 1: that those numbers don't take the coronavirus into consideration and
Speaker 1: the effect a pandemic could have on an already fragile
Speaker 1: maternal health system. The fact is the situation was bleak
Speaker 1: long before COVID nineteen hit the US in early Over
Speaker 1: the past three decades, while the world has drastically reduced
Speaker 1: its maternal more vality rate, the U s is the
Speaker 1: only developed nation to see its rate go up, and
Speaker 1: go up significantly. The US now has one of the
Speaker 1: highest mortality rates in the developed world, a fact that
Speaker 1: was so shocking to me, that seems so incongruous, that
Speaker 1: I set out to understand how this could be possible.
Speaker 1: And so today part one of our look into America's
Speaker 1: maternal mortality crisis and my next question, what's behind this
Speaker 1: devastating trend. To answer that question, we have to go
Speaker 1: back to cure a story. We were just over the moon,
Speaker 1: ecstatic to welcome our first son, Charles. It was just
Speaker 1: such a tremendous blessing We've always talked about having back
Speaker 1: to back boys. You know. The first time around, we
Speaker 1: talked about all the politically correct stuff. We're not really
Speaker 1: worried about what jenitors. As long as it's a healthy baby,
Speaker 1: we don't care. But by the time the second one
Speaker 1: came around, Kira had her mind made up. She was like,
Speaker 1: I'm a boy's mom. This is where I get in,
Speaker 1: where I fit in. Kira and Charles were married in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. Two years later, they welcomed their
Speaker 1: first son, Charles the fifth, via C section in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and two thousand and fifteen, a job opportunity moved the
Speaker 1: young family out to Los Angeles, where they were preparing
Speaker 1: for the birth of their second son, who they decided
Speaker 1: to call Langston. We interviewed about I think about three
Speaker 1: or four different O. B. G Yan's, and we had
Speaker 1: also made the decision very early on that we wanted
Speaker 1: to deliver at Cedar Sinai Hospital. It was our understanding
Speaker 1: that Cedar sign I was supposed to be, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the best places, certainly in the state of California,
Speaker 1: and it had a reputation of being, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the best places in the country. Particularly in the
Speaker 1: area of eccentrics and delivery. Beyond a little bit of
Speaker 1: nausea early on, Kira's second pregnancy passes without incident. She's thirty,
Speaker 1: she's fit, she's healthy, and she has the resources to
Speaker 1: choose her care. Because Kira had a C section with
Speaker 1: her first delivery, her doctor recommends they do the same
Speaker 1: for the second. She's scheduled for a routine C section
Speaker 1: on April twelve, two thousand and sixteen, at Cedars Sinai
Speaker 1: Hospital in l A. So we walked in for Lengthson's
Speaker 1: delivery for the scheduled C section at two o'clock, and
Speaker 1: so Lengthon is born, perfectly healthy, tin fingers, tin toes,
Speaker 1: you know, super super handsome, looking just like me. And
Speaker 1: it's just we're just overwhelmed with all this, just joy
Speaker 1: and pride of just welcoming this precious gift into our lives.
Speaker 1: And so shortly after the delivery, they take us back
Speaker 1: to recovery. You're sitting in the bed resting, and Lengthon
Speaker 1: is there and the little incubator toaster thingy. And as
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there, I looked down here's bedside, and I
Speaker 1: begin to see the calf that are the fully catheter
Speaker 1: coming from her bedside begin to turn pink with blood.
Speaker 1: And so this was around four o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: and I brought it to the attention to the doctors
Speaker 1: and the nurses and cedars, and they come in, they
Speaker 1: examine cure, They examine her physically and take her vitals.
Speaker 1: They do an art sound, but very importantly, they order
Speaker 1: a CT scan to be performed stat When the results
Speaker 1: from those initial tests come back, they're not good. Kira's
Speaker 1: blood levels are abnormal and the ultrasound shows fluid filling
Speaker 1: her abdomen, but there's no action from the staff. As
Speaker 1: CIA's condition continues to deteriorate, she's forced to wait for
Speaker 1: the next step. The CT scan. Six o'clock comes, no
Speaker 1: CT scan. Seven o'clock, no CT scan, eight o'clock, Still
Speaker 1: no CT scans, Still haven't take her back to surgery.
Speaker 1: Ten o'clock comes, no CT scan. E eleven o'clock comes,
Speaker 1: no CT scan. At this point, Kira's pale, shivering, uncontrollably,
Speaker 1: and sensitive to touch. In the seven hours since Charles
Speaker 1: first noticed blood and Kira's catheter, he and his family
Speaker 1: have been relentlessly advocating for her, asking for help, asking
Speaker 1: for that CT scan, for attention, for anything. Were you
Speaker 1: going crazy, Charles? I can only imagine that you were, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think about Shirley McClain in terms of endearment,
Speaker 1: that you were just furious. I was doing my best
Speaker 1: to stay calm in this In this moment, I have
Speaker 1: a wife who is clearly um fighting for her life.
Speaker 1: I have a newborn baby. I have family members that
Speaker 1: are all looking and saying, what's going on? We need answers.
Speaker 1: And Kira's whole time, even her most vulnerable, her thing
Speaker 1: to me was, baby, just stay calm in that moment.
Speaker 1: As much as I wanted to yell and scream and
Speaker 1: slam my fists on the nurses station or grab a
Speaker 1: doctor by the collar, what Kira knew, even her most
Speaker 1: vulnerable state, was that the moment I raised my voice,
Speaker 1: the moment I become too aggressive as an African American male,
Speaker 1: I become seen as a threat. And ultimately she was
Speaker 1: concerned that I would be then that they would call security,
Speaker 1: and then I'd be removed from the situation. Um. And
Speaker 1: so even in my most heightened the point of anger,
Speaker 1: I do my best to stay calm and communicated as
Speaker 1: effectively as I can, and even to the point around
Speaker 1: nine o'clock Katie, I pulled a nurse to the side
Speaker 1: of Cedars and as I grabbed her by her hands
Speaker 1: and I just said, look, I looked turned eyes and said,
Speaker 1: I need help. My wife isn't doing good. They're telling
Speaker 1: us they're gonna take her back to surgery. They're telling
Speaker 1: us that they need to do a CT scam, but
Speaker 1: nobody's coming. They haven't done anything. We need help. And
Speaker 1: the woman looked me in my eyes and said, sir,
Speaker 1: your wife just isn't a priority right now, and then
Speaker 1: she just walked away. That CT scan never comes and
Speaker 1: it isn't until after midnight that the staff makes the
Speaker 1: decision to take your back to surgery. At this point,
Speaker 1: she's extremely weak, but she's conscious and has been since
Speaker 1: Charles first alerted the staff that something was wrong more
Speaker 1: than eight hours ago. I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I have
Speaker 1: all this mix of emotions, but a certain part of
Speaker 1: me is relieved because they're finally doing something. And you know,
Speaker 1: as we're walking down the hall uh towards the o
Speaker 1: R and I'm walking next to her bedside and I'm
Speaker 1: holding here's hand. She's holding my hand, and she's saying, baby,
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I can't even really think of many times
Speaker 1: and the you know, years I've known this woman that
Speaker 1: she's ever uttered those words. And as I'm walking next
Speaker 1: to her, I'm doing the only thing I know how
Speaker 1: to do as a husband, which is just trying and
Speaker 1: tell her that maybe everything's gonna be okay. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be okay. They wheel her away and finally get to
Speaker 1: this point where these double doors open and they close
Speaker 1: behind her. Ah. They take me into a waiting room,
Speaker 1: the exact same waiting room that we were in that afternoon,
Speaker 1: full of mothers with these humongous bellies and balloons and
Speaker 1: families with cameras and all this wonderful, beautiful, anxious anticipation
Speaker 1: to welcome these new lives into the world. And now
Speaker 1: it's almost one o'clock in the morning and I'm in
Speaker 1: the I'm the only person in the room, all by myself,
Speaker 1: and it is just eerily silent, and the only thing
Speaker 1: I hear is literally the janitor's vacuum going back and forth.
Speaker 1: And about twenty minutes go by, and the set of
Speaker 1: double doors open and a set of two residents come
Speaker 1: walking through the doors, and as they get closer to me,
Speaker 1: I can see that the looks on their face it
Speaker 1: was not good. He said, look, we couldn't be back
Speaker 1: there any longer without letting you know what happened. Um
Speaker 1: when he opened her up, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: blood and she coded. And then they go on to
Speaker 1: tell me situation is critical and they're continuing to work
Speaker 1: on her. And at that point, it's you know, Cure's energy,
Speaker 1: the way I am, the way we are. I was
Speaker 1: just I'm just I'm just an optimist. When you told
Speaker 1: me that you're continuing to work on her in her
Speaker 1: situation is critical, that's all I needed to hear, because
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, it's Kira. She's the closest thing that I've
Speaker 1: ever met to a superhero. She's gonna be okay. Right,
Speaker 1: we had to scare but she's gonna be okay, is
Speaker 1: what I was thinking at that point. And I probably
Speaker 1: told him I said, look, thank you for coming out
Speaker 1: and telling me, but you're not doing anything for me
Speaker 1: by being out here. I need you to get back
Speaker 1: in there and bring me my wife back. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: surrounded by Kira's loved ones, Charles gets the unimaginable news.
Speaker 1: They told me that um she had passed and there
Speaker 1: was nothing else that they could do to Saber. Literally
Speaker 1: twelve hours earlier, we walked into this hospital with a
Speaker 1: woman that not only was in good health, it was
Speaker 1: an exceptional health. And what you're telling me, it's not computing.
Speaker 1: This doesn't make sense. How can this happen? What did
Speaker 1: happen is that Kira's bladder was nicked during her C section,
Speaker 1: and for nearly ten hours from incision to returning to
Speaker 1: the o R, Kira bled to death. When they opened
Speaker 1: her up, they found three and a half liters of
Speaker 1: blood in her abdomen and her heart had given out.
Speaker 1: That was the last time I saw my wife. A laar,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. On April two thousand sixteen, Kira
Speaker 1: Johnson became one of the approximately nine women who die
Speaker 1: every year from pregnancy and childbirth related causes. To understand
Speaker 1: how we got to Kira, we have to go back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen eighties. For much of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the US enjoyed decades of essentially an uninterrupted decline in
Speaker 1: its maternal mortality rate, but then in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: that rate started to tick back up. We thought maternal
Speaker 1: mortality was essentially solved, as we could um make improvements,
Speaker 1: we could bring down by a few deaths. But I
Speaker 1: had no idea that actually deaths were increasing. That's Dr
Speaker 1: Deborah Bingham, founder and executive director for the Institute for
Speaker 1: Parnatal Quality Improvement and associate professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 1: Deborah has also been working as a pernatal nurse, bedside
Speaker 1: and administration, and in public health since nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: By the two thousand's, she was the director of nursing
Speaker 1: for two hospitals in New York City. We only had
Speaker 1: one death in like a five year period, so we
Speaker 1: I didn't have any data to tell me Otherwise, I
Speaker 1: had no personal experiences to say this is a problem.
Speaker 1: I didn't think this was a crisis, but Deborah soon
Speaker 1: found out it was in two thousand and six. She
Speaker 1: was working on her doctorate when she accepted a position
Speaker 1: in California to form the state's first Maternal Quality Care Collaborative,
Speaker 1: an initiative to improve maternal outcomes. During the fall of
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, she was pulled into a private
Speaker 1: meeting with leaders from the California Department of Health. In
Speaker 1: this private meeting, we we were shown, um that rates
Speaker 1: of maternal death had been rising in California, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know why, nor did we. It was shocking. We
Speaker 1: knew our rates um even in the nineties were still
Speaker 1: higher than other countries, so we not significantly higher, but
Speaker 1: slightly higher than other developed countries. So UM, I should
Speaker 1: say I knew that. I knew that our rates of
Speaker 1: maternal deaths in the United States were a little higher
Speaker 1: than other developed countries. So to even have any increase
Speaker 1: was just is very shocking. I thought we were getting better,
Speaker 1: not worse. And I still remember the room I was
Speaker 1: in and how that felt to just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what is going on? And is l And I didn't
Speaker 1: know at that time whether that was just unique to
Speaker 1: California or was that issue for the entire country. The
Speaker 1: issue was not unique to California. It was a national
Speaker 1: trend that would only continue to rise. In n seven,
Speaker 1: the maternal mortality rate was seven point two, meaning for
Speaker 1: every one hundred thousand live births, about seven women died. Today,
Speaker 1: that rate has more than doubled to seventeen point four.
Speaker 1: Now to really understand why more mothers are dying today
Speaker 1: than they were thirty years ago. Debra says, you have
Speaker 1: to look at what's changed in the medical industry. You
Speaker 1: can't ignore the fact that we've had a sixty nearly
Speaker 1: a six increase in cesarean birth. Now about one third
Speaker 1: of all women give birth surgically. And then there's fewer
Speaker 1: women having vaginal births after cesarean and so there's more
Speaker 1: repeat c sections, which add more risks to have the
Speaker 1: same scar open multiple times, leads to all kinds of
Speaker 1: potential complications. Another thing that has changed over the last
Speaker 1: thirty years, more women are being admitted earlier in labor
Speaker 1: and what that means that that in the United States,
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of hospitals, don't have like
Speaker 1: labor lounges or places where women can keep moving around,
Speaker 1: so they're often put in bad and um don't have
Speaker 1: freedom of movement in the early stages of labor, where
Speaker 1: in the past we used to help women UM have
Speaker 1: confidence go home, walk around at home, UM and come
Speaker 1: back several hours later or maybe even their labor would stop,
Speaker 1: which now they're being admitted, and once they're admitted, then
Speaker 1: all this whole what's called a cascade of interventions happen,
Speaker 1: which then lead them down a path that could have
Speaker 1: been avoided previously. You can think of it as a
Speaker 1: path of interventions that could start with something like medication
Speaker 1: to induce labor and then end with an emergency c section.
Speaker 1: Interventions aren't necessarily dangerous, but each one has the potential
Speaker 1: to at least introduce risk to the mother. I am
Speaker 1: a high risk perinatal nurse, meaning that I take care
Speaker 1: of Over many years, I've taken care of very, very
Speaker 1: sick women with very serious medical conditions, So I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed in any way to using induction agents or interventions
Speaker 1: medical interventions. I personally have helped intervene in many ways
Speaker 1: when needed, but as I've learned, we should not intervene
Speaker 1: for the heck of it. Devor says, there's one final
Speaker 1: element that's worth noting here. When we're talking about this
Speaker 1: increase in the maternal mortality rate over the last thirty years,
Speaker 1: we started counting better, So we need to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: some of this increases due to better counting, which is
Speaker 1: a good thing because every death deserves to be counted
Speaker 1: and needs to be counted. So we can learn from
Speaker 1: all all of the deaths. It's a way to honor
Speaker 1: the women who died. It's a way to honor the
Speaker 1: teams who tried to save their lives. But changes in
Speaker 1: the medical system still don't give us the full picture.
Speaker 1: There are other forces, major structural issues that caused between
Speaker 1: seven hundred and nine hundred women to die every year.
Speaker 1: A really major problem and cause is the focus on
Speaker 1: babies and fetuses rather than mothers. It's a problem that's
Speaker 1: been developing over five decades. Nina Martin is an investigative
Speaker 1: reporter at pro Publica. She spent her career reporting on
Speaker 1: women's health. In two thousand and seventeen, Nina, along with
Speaker 1: the team at pro Publica and her partners at NPR,
Speaker 1: released a massive investigative report on the maternal mortality crisis.
Speaker 1: It was called the Lost Mother's Project, and it would
Speaker 1: go on to win a Peabody Award. Women used to die,
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of thousands of women used to die
Speaker 1: probably a year in the turn of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: um from pregnancy and childbirth complications. And there was enormous
Speaker 1: progress over many, many decades to to bring those numbers
Speaker 1: down and then UM. Somewhere around the fifties and the
Speaker 1: sixties UM the numbers got to be good enough where
Speaker 1: people started taking the eye off there there, you know,
Speaker 1: started really thinking about it differently. Before the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: the fetus was essentially inaccessible to doctors. They literally couldn't
Speaker 1: examine it, so care had to focus on the mother.
Speaker 1: But then technological advancements and new techniques like testing amniotic
Speaker 1: fluid and sonogram imaging made it possible for doctors to
Speaker 1: monitor the fetus in utero. With the fetus now a patient,
Speaker 1: the next few decades saw a pronounced shift of care
Speaker 1: and attention away from the mother. Today, Nina Martin says,
Speaker 1: it's clear where the priorities are. You know, think about
Speaker 1: smoking and and and sort of some of the messaging
Speaker 1: around smoking during pregnancy. It's not about the fact that
Speaker 1: smoking is really bad for moms. It's about smoking for
Speaker 1: the babies. Think about when you're giving birth. You go
Speaker 1: in and you get hooked up to monitors and everything,
Speaker 1: and the monitor is mostly there to check the fetal
Speaker 1: heart rate and to make sure that the baby signs
Speaker 1: are okay. And if the baby signs aren't okay, then
Speaker 1: it's you know, rush, rush, rush in to get the
Speaker 1: C section. Mom signs are monitored at a much lesser rate,
Speaker 1: So much of the attention in the maternity ward after
Speaker 1: mom gives birth is around feeding the baby, taking care
Speaker 1: of the baby. What do you do? Do you know,
Speaker 1: how are you to have the car seat? You know,
Speaker 1: all of that. It's not about well, who's going to
Speaker 1: take care of you when you go home? And do
Speaker 1: you know warning signs and everything. We just kind of
Speaker 1: kick her home with the baby and don't pay any
Speaker 1: attention to her. I mean, it's just really shocking. But
Speaker 1: there's still another structural issue putting so many American mothers
Speaker 1: at risk. Will explore that right after this. When Kia
Speaker 1: Johnson died in April of two thousand sixteen, the cause
Speaker 1: of death would be listed as hemorrhage shock. But the
Speaker 1: truth is much more complicated. What happened to Cira was
Speaker 1: not just a medical tragedy, was a medical catastrophe. Everything
Speaker 1: that could have went wrong, in fact did so. Not
Speaker 1: only did that doctor failed Kira, but the hospital and
Speaker 1: their policies and procedures failed her. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: role race might have played. Do you believe that it
Speaker 1: did do you believe that you were you and Kira
Speaker 1: were dismissed or not treated seriously because of because of
Speaker 1: your skin color. Absolutely, and the reality of the situation
Speaker 1: is this is that what is clear about what happened
Speaker 1: on April twelve of two thousand and sixteen Seater Sina
Speaker 1: is that the staff and the doctors and the nurses
Speaker 1: that were responsible for Cura's life failed to seek Kira
Speaker 1: in the same way that they would see their daughter,
Speaker 1: or their mother or their wives. I thought that what
Speaker 1: happened to here was an isolated incident. I thought that
Speaker 1: a woman who is an exceptional health who has access
Speaker 1: to care, who does all the things right, walking into
Speaker 1: a hospital like Cedar Sinai in exceptional health and not
Speaker 1: walking out to raise her boys, I thought that it
Speaker 1: was an anomal I thought, this is something that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in two thousand and sixteen in our country. But
Speaker 1: it does happen. And of that nine hundred or so
Speaker 1: women who die every year, the vast majority are black.
Speaker 1: Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy, three
Speaker 1: to four times more likely to die during pregnancy than
Speaker 1: white women. Monica Rose McLamore is an associate professor at
Speaker 1: the University of California, San Francisco. She has dedicated her
Speaker 1: entire career to reproductive health and justice. So when you
Speaker 1: think about that, that group of between seven hundred and
Speaker 1: nine hundred, you know, maternal deaths in the United States,
Speaker 1: you can argue that you know, three hundred of them
Speaker 1: potentially could be black and brown women, and so that
Speaker 1: disparity or that difference is actually huge. And that's when
Speaker 1: you control for education, income status, um, insurance type, place
Speaker 1: of care, that risk is equally shared by Black women. Regardless.
Speaker 1: If you ask Monica what's causing such a disparity, what's
Speaker 1: killing so many Black women like Kia Johnson, he agrees
Speaker 1: with Charles it's racism, pure and simple. The truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is is that you know, black death during pregnancy,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is a canary in a coal mine.
Speaker 1: It tells us where our priorities are. It tells us.
Speaker 1: You know that that again, you know, we don't listen
Speaker 1: to and or believe black women, whether it's about pain
Speaker 1: or whether it's about pregnancy related symptoms, contractions, whatever. We
Speaker 1: we don't value black women. It's because our lives aren't
Speaker 1: worth saving to some people. And so you know, to
Speaker 1: say that as a black woman is a really hard thing.
Speaker 1: But that that's what my gut tells me, That's what
Speaker 1: my lived experience tells me. Every time I use the
Speaker 1: word racism, people always go to the you know, interpersonal level.
Speaker 1: I am calling you a bad person in there for
Speaker 1: your racist That's not what I'm talking about. I actually
Speaker 1: think most people actually inherently are trying to do as
Speaker 1: well as they can do with what they have, and
Speaker 1: when you know better, you should do better. But the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is, structural racism is a different
Speaker 1: beast altogether, um because it's really about institutions, policies, and
Speaker 1: structures that actually privilege one group over another based on
Speaker 1: race or ethnicity. We know that there is an overrepresentation
Speaker 1: of of of black people in poverty, and again that's
Speaker 1: a structural racism problem. When you think back to things
Speaker 1: like you know, red Line, where you know people were
Speaker 1: denied mortgages or given high risk mortgages, like it is
Speaker 1: a structural reason why Black people are overrepresented in being poor.
Speaker 1: I think it also shows up in terms of the
Speaker 1: differential treatment that people receive based on insurance status. Why
Speaker 1: are we giving people different care? You know when clinical
Speaker 1: guidelines are standard based on who's paying for it back
Speaker 1: in hospitals. Systematic racism also shows up in the actual
Speaker 1: makeup of who is overwhelmingly caring for black mothers. We
Speaker 1: have not had enough courage and diversifying our health care workforce.
Speaker 1: The fact that you know, I believe one percent of
Speaker 1: physicians in the United States are are Black Americans, and
Speaker 1: I don't think nursing is much better. UM, we need
Speaker 1: to diversify our healthcare workforce. A structural problem is if
Speaker 1: we don't believe that people of color and black people
Speaker 1: in particular have the aptitude or capacity to be able
Speaker 1: to care for communities that we come from, live and
Speaker 1: work and serve UM. I think that's just like a
Speaker 1: really really racist thing to think. At both the individual
Speaker 1: level and at a structural level. We can see the
Speaker 1: effects of institutional racism play out right now with the
Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic. While anyone can get COVID nineteen, racial data
Speaker 1: shows that more Black Americans are contracting and dying from
Speaker 1: COVID than whites. One analysis showed that in Chicago, black
Speaker 1: residents so far make up of the deaths there, get
Speaker 1: the account for only nine percent of the city's population.
Speaker 1: In New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic. COVID
Speaker 1: is hitting black and brown neighborhoods the hardest, like in
Speaker 1: Jackson Heights, Queens, which is the most ethically diverse neighborhood
Speaker 1: in the country. It's a very underserved community and the
Speaker 1: community right now is being hit very, very hard by
Speaker 1: the COVID epidemic. You may recognize Dr Tracy bone Hemmerdinger
Speaker 1: from last week's episode. She's the chief of Obstetrics at
Speaker 1: the Elmhurst Hospital Center. The population that we generally see
Speaker 1: at Elmhurst is mixed community of new immigrants. We see
Speaker 1: all different ethnic backgrounds. The number one language spoken is Spanish,
Speaker 1: followed I think very closely by Bengali. And I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of the patients that we see fall
Speaker 1: into the category of people who can't social distance because
Speaker 1: they live with large numbers of people in their homes,
Speaker 1: people who are responsible for caring for not only many children,
Speaker 1: but also their parents and their extended family uh and
Speaker 1: and people whose jobs are either domestic workers or you know,
Speaker 1: people whose jobs and livelihood may be cut off completely
Speaker 1: and not have any access to their regular daily needs,
Speaker 1: and so I think that that puts them at significant
Speaker 1: risk for any illness. Before COVID nineteen hit, Elmer's was
Speaker 1: running programs in partnership with the Maternal Hospital Quality Improvement Network,
Speaker 1: a part of a citywide plan to reduce maternal deaths
Speaker 1: and life threatening complications among women of color. There are
Speaker 1: other initiatives as well. In California, for example, a bill
Speaker 1: that passed last year requires implicit bias training for all
Speaker 1: healthcare workers. But Monica Macklemore says, it's just to start
Speaker 1: to really address something so widespread, prevalent, and daunting as
Speaker 1: institutional racism, you have to begin by making things better
Speaker 1: for those who have it the worst. If you're centering
Speaker 1: the people who are most vulnerable, everybody's care should actually
Speaker 1: get better because then those innovations should be translated for everybody.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people don't believe that that if
Speaker 1: you center to people who are experiencing the greatest amount
Speaker 1: of burden, they think they're losing something. And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't understand. If we are really really like making
Speaker 1: things better for the people who have it worse, everybody
Speaker 1: should should actually experience an improvement in their care in
Speaker 1: industrialized nations. Our maternal death rate is one of the
Speaker 1: highest for income countries. We can do better. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be like this. Tomorrow on a special episode
Speaker 1: of Next Question, Part two of our look at America's
Speaker 1: maternal mortality crisis. Don't worry your little head about it,
Speaker 1: because you're fine now in your baby spine, and go
Speaker 1: home and live your life and be happy that everything's okay.
Speaker 1: And so her experience was completely erased. Why maternal deaths
Speaker 1: are only the tip of the iceberg being a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: I just thought that will never happen to me. An
Speaker 1: intimate conversation with Olympian Alison Felix and the courageous people
Speaker 1: who are working to save American mothers. That's tomorrow on
Speaker 1: Next Question. To understand how the coronavirus is affecting pregnant women,
Speaker 1: check out last week's episode called how Do You have
Speaker 1: a Baby during a Pandemic? On Apple podcast, the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Next Question with Katie Couric is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Katie Curreic Media. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: Katie Currik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang. The supervising producer
Speaker 1: is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is Bethan Macaluso. The
Speaker 1: associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements. Editing by
Speaker 1: Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagan and Lowell Berlante, Mixing by Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more information on today's episode,
Speaker 1: go to Katie Currek dot com and follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram at Katie Couric. For more podcasts for
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,