More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors’ group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan.
The problem has peaked, with British Columbia and Ontario each sending a record number of women to U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Specifically, 80 B.C. women have been sent to U.S. hospitals since April 1, 2007; in Ontario, 28 have been sent since January of 2007, according to figures from the respective health ministries.
Andr Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, said the problem is due to bed closings that took place almost a decade ago, the absence of a national birthing initiative and too few staff.
“Neonatologists are very stretched right now,†Dr. Lalonde said in a telephone interview from Ottawa. “We’re so stretched, it’s kind of dangerous.â€
Without the US’s capitalist medical system, these children would quite probably be dead. I don’t mind helping out here, really, I don’t mind. But isn’t it time we got some damn recognition for this instead of being browbeaten at every turn?