California
Large stretches of California are without maternity care as hospitals close labor wards
![Large stretches of California are without maternity care as hospitals close labor wards Large stretches of California are without maternity care as hospitals close labor wards](https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/OCR-L-MATERNITY-CM-1119.jpg?w=1024&h=682)
These maternity ward closures have disproportionately impacted California’s low-income and Latino populations as well as communities where access to maternal care is already limited.
According to a CalMatters analysis of census tracts where closures have occurred, the median household income was about $12,000 less than in communities where maternity wards remain open.
Case in point: Imperial County on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Imperial Valley is a sprawling agricultural region. About 86% of the county’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino and close to 23% lives under the poverty line.
Even before the closure of El Centro’s maternity ward, Imperial County was designated a “low access” area for maternity care.
The number of births in Imperial County has been slowly declining, but the birth rate there is higher than the state average. In 2021, Imperial County saw 66.3 births per 1,000 women compared to California’s average of 53.5.
The closure of the maternity ward at El Centro means pregnant patients now either give birth at the sole other hospital in the county, Pioneers Memorial in Brawley, or they travel to neighboring counties, like San Diego or Riverside.
On its website, El Centro Regional Medical Center directs labor and delivery patients to hospitals as far as Yuma, Arizona and Palm Springs, one and two hours away by car. The hospital notes that in the case of an emergency, patients can still give birth in its emergency room, which experts say that while not life-threatening, is not an ideal scenario.
“The choices are limited, and so sometimes women have reported that there’s a delay in being able to get into the maternity ward,” said Adriana Ramirez, who manages maternal programs for Imperial County’s Public Health Department. “What else can they do?”
Calexico in Imperial County is home to about 38,000 people. The city doesn’t have its own hospital. Pregnant women there largely relied on El Centro’s hospital, some 13 miles away, to give birth. With the closure of that maternity ward, families now have to travel farther north. The trek from Calexico to Brawley isn’t unreasonable — it’s a 30-to 45-minute drive depending on traffic — but it’s a reminder that much-needed medical care is drifting farther away from this town.
“It creates a very troubling feeling in an area that already is medically underserved, and to move those services farther north really makes a lot of people nervous,” said Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat representing the Imperial Valley. “What I understand at the moment is that it is working out because there really isn’t any other option but to make it work.”The El Centro hospital and Pioneers Memorial released a joint statement when they announced the maternity ward closure that said one “unified” county-wide maternity ward would be a positive change. “We are confident that consolidating services will benefit all mothers and newborns,” Damon Sorenson, CEO of Pioneers Memorial, said in the statement.
Many closures and suspensions result from hospital systems consolidating maternity care into one location. Hospital representatives say consolidations can help maintain staff training and provide a higher level of care.
Yet stories of an overwhelmed maternity ward at Pioneers are circulating on social media and among residents. Some women have said they’ve experienced delays, although no one has reported being denied care.
Dr. Hamid Zadeh, an obstetrician who delivers at Pioneers Memorial, said the hospital is seeing significant demand that strains the capacity of its maternity ward.
“Sometimes we schedule inductions or deliveries for patients and they are getting put on hold because people keep coming and we have no nurse to take care of them,” he said.
Zadeh said medical staff monitor patients whose scheduled deliveries are delayed. “I understand it’s a concern that has always been there, but more recently with the closure of El Centro, it’s gotten worse.”
Blanca Morales, CEO of Calexico Wellness Center, a community clinic, said she hears these concerns from patients. “They’re full. That capacity is not there for our population.”
Morales grew up in the area and has seen the depletion of local medical services. After stints in other parts of the state and country, she came back home and in 2018 established the clinic. Next she’d like to open a birthing center — an ambitious goal, but a much needed service.
Bringing a birthing center and more OB-GYNS to Calexico would also open the doors for local women to get prenatal care sooner, she said.
There’s some evidence nationally that women receive less prenatal care and rates of preterm birth increase when maternity wards close particularly in rural counties. In the case of El Centro Regional Medical Center, the hospital is continuing prenatal care in its outpatient clinics.
Mothers in Imperial County receive the least amount of prenatal care in the state — only about 47% of pregnant women there receive prenatal care beginning in the first trimester compared to 83% statewide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention birth database.
Local providers say this low rate reflects a few of the area’s challenges: delayed care because of insufficient providers, a high rate of pregnant teens who are more likely to skip prenatal care, and also patients who may start receiving pregnancy care in Mexico before seeking services on the U.S. side.
Financial decisions by California hospitals
In the business of health care, perhaps nothing is more influential than the bottom line. Among the top reasons cited by hospital administrators and experts for this wave of closures is growing costs coupled with periods of financial stress.
Labor and delivery units often are the second-most expensive departments for hospitals to run, second only to emergency rooms which also require 24-hour staff, multiple administrators and health care researchers told CalMatters.
“Obstetrics units are often unprofitable for hospitals to operate,” said Caitlin Carroll, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota whose research focuses on health economics and maternity care. “The cost of running an obstetric unit is quite high. Obstetric units have to be ready to take care of a patient 24 hours a day, they need clinical staff with specialized skills, they need specialized equipment, they need dedicated space for labor and delivery. All of that costs money.”
Jim Goerlich, president of the Petaluma Valley Hospital nurses union, said even if the maternity unit isn’t making money, the rest of the hospital is almost always profitable enough to make up the difference.
“Does that unit need to make money to be intrinsically valued?” Goerlich said.
Providence, the hospital operator, suspended maternity services indefinitely in May, maintaining that it was not a financial decision. In a statement, Chief Administrative Officer Troy Gideon said the hospital did not have enough clinicians to keep the ward running.
In San Diego County, administrators at Tri-City Medical Center said that the maternity ward closure was driven in part because of “current and expected financial losses”. Meanwhile, officials at the El Centro hospital in Imperial County said closing its maternity ward “was necessary for financial reasons.”
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California
Bay Area Crime: Explore 20 years of data from California cities
![Bay Area Crime: Explore 20 years of data from California cities Bay Area Crime: Explore 20 years of data from California cities](https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Bay-Area-Counties-Crime.png?w=1024&h=534)
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) releases its latest crime data every year at the beginning of July. The Criminal Justice Statistics Center collects, analyzes, and reports statistical data that provide valid measures of crime and the criminal justice process. It examines these data continuously to describe crime and the criminal justice system better and promote the responsible presentation and use of crime statistics.
According to the latest 2023 California Department of Justice data, most counties in the Bay Area had a decrease in crimes in 2023, including violent and property crimes. However, Alameda County still had an increase, especially a sharp rise in violent crimes.
Several cities in the Bay Area have shown high crime rates over the years. Read here to learn more about which city has the highest crime rates in the Bay Area, and why.
The California Department of Justice is completing a five-year effort to develop and implement a new state crime data repository, the California Incident-Based Reporting System (CIBRS), to house the new FBI statistical reporting format. Previously, California used the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Not all law enforcement agencies in the state have yet made the transition.
According to the DOJ’s annual crime report, not all agencies were able to submit a full year of crime data for 2023. Find your city or county on these three interactive charts to discover your city’s trends and quirks and compare them with other cities from 2013 to 2023.
California
California hospital told woman's family she had checked out when she was actually dead, lawsuit says
![California hospital told woman's family she had checked out when she was actually dead, lawsuit says California hospital told woman's family she had checked out when she was actually dead, lawsuit says](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2024-08/220822-Jessie-Marie-Peterson-al-1104-e773a5.jpg)
Northern California hospital officials told a 31-year-old woman’s family that she had checked out — when the patient had actually died and her body kept in cold storage for a year, loved ones said in a civil lawsuit.
Jessie Marie Peterson had been suffering from Type 1 diabetes when she was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center on April 6 last year, according to allegations made in a Sacramento County Superior Court lawsuit filed earlier this month by the patient’s family.
Days after she was admitted, Peterson’s mother Ginger Congi called Mercy San Juan to check on her daughter was told the patient had been discharged, according to the complaint.
The family filed a missing person’s report with the county sheriff’s department, posted notices around town and even interviewed local homeless people in hopes someone had seen Peterson.
“The family searched and searched for Jessie. It was not until April 12, 2024, that the Sacramento County Detective’s Office notified Jessie’s family that she was found deceased at Mercy San Juan hospital,” according to the lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs’ attorney Marc Greenberg.
“At this point, Jessie’s body was so decomposed that an open casket funeral was not feasible, and Jessie’s fingerprints were not even obtainable for any keepsake.”
The decomposition also made it impossible for an autopsy to determine “whether medical malpractice played any role” in Peterson’s death, the lawsuit said.
The family eventually found out Peterson died on April 8 last year, but it took until April 4 of this year for a death certificate to be signed by Dr. Nadeem Mukhtar.
For almost all this time, Peterson’s body had been kept shelf No. Red 22A in an off-site cold storage unit, according to hospital records obtained by the family.
The family is asking for $25 million for the hospital’s alleged negligence.
A representative for Dignity Health, the corporate umbrella for the hospital, could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.
“Mercy San Juan hospital advertises that ‘at our care facilities, we take pride in treating all people with dignity and respect.’ In this case, there was no dignity and no respect,” Greenberg said.
“Mercy San Juan hospital failed in its most fundamental duty to notify Jessie’s family of her death. Mercy San Juan stored Jessie in an off-site warehouse and she was left to decompose for nearly a year while her family relentlessly inquired about her whereabouts.”
California
OpenAI joins Silicon Valley companies lobbying against California's AI bill, which includes a 'kill switch'
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OpenAI opposes California’s AI bill, arguing that it could drive companies out of the state.
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The bill requires strict safety protocols for AI models, including a “kill switch.”
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Despite industry opposition, the bill will be voted on in the California Assembly at the end of the month.
OpenAI is joining Silicon Valley’s tech titans in the fight against California’s landmark artificial intelligence regulation bill, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
SB 1047, introduced by California State Sen. Scott Wiener in February, seeks to establish “common sense safety standards” for AI systems that cost over $100 million to develop, Business Insider reported on Monday.
The bill mandates that companies implement protocols to prevent their AI models from causing “critical harms,” such as being used in cyberattacks or leading to the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The bill also specified the provision of a “full shutdown,” which functions as a kill switch for AI systems.
Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, warned that the bill could stifle progress and drive companies out of California, in a letter addressed to Wiener on Wednesday.
Kwon also wrote that regulation of AI concerning national security is “best managed at the federal level” rather than through a “patchwork of state laws.”
Silicon Valley tech heavyweights like Meta and Anthropic have been lobbying against the bill, too.
Meta warned that the bill might discourage the open-source movement by exposing developers to significant legal liabilities, wrote Rob Sherman, vice president of policy and deputy chief privacy officer at Meta, in a letter in June. Sherman wrote that regulation could hamper the broader tech ecosystem because smaller businesses rely on these freely available models to innovate.
Anthropic also resisted the bill’s stringent preemptive regulations, advocating instead for a more balanced approach that wouldn’t stymie progress, BI reported on Monday.
OpenAI previously lobbied against similar legislation by the European Union. The company sought to ease the regulatory requirements on general-purpose AI systems like GPT-3, Time reported last year.
The EU had since altered its final draft of the AI Act to exclude language that would classify general-purpose AI as high risk, instead focusing on “foundation models” with more limited requirements, according to Time.
Despite the industry opposition, Sen. Wiener argued that it is a “highly reasonable bill that asks large AI labs to do what they’ve already committed to doing,” the senator wrote in response to OpenAI’s letter on Wednesday.
The bill had passed a vote in the state Senate and is set for a final vote in the California Assembly at the end of the month.
OpenAI and Sen. Weiner didn’t respond to a request for comment sent outside standard business hours.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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