Tagged With "Rural hospitals"

By Ashley Lyles, MedPage Today, November 19, 2019 Patient: I'd gotten pregnant again and I was using through my whole pregnancy, and I didn't receive prenatal care. He was born and he's fine and everything. The [Department of Social Services] let me bring him home. Then a week after I had him, I relapsed really, really bad. Then, I got really messed up and they took my kid. Reporter: The opioid epidemic has taken a toll in rural areas, especially on pregnant women. Doctors and healthcare...

From the article: As anyone who's ever been pregnant knows, you have to go to the doctor a lot. If you are someone with a limited income, maybe limited money for gas or unreliable transportation, the ability to come one place and get money through WIC for your food so you can eat enough and have a healthy pregnancy, to see your behavioral health clinician if you're struggling with postpartum depression or a mood disorder. To see an addiction specialist and a doctor who can prescribe...

This article was initially published in RACmonitor and appears with the publisher’s permission The country’s smallest hospitals continue to be in peril, as are the patients who rely on them. This issue continues to be the reality for rural health with major challenges for the patients and providers in those regions. 7.4% of babies born in the US are birthed at hospitals handling 10 to 500 births a year, or “low-volume” hospitals. In the context of our industry’s fiscal focus, that number...