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Sending Babies to the US


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I recall reading about this a few months ago, but the Globe and Mail has a good article about it - hopefully the press coverage causes some change. ;)

 

 

Canada's U.S. baby boom

With neonatal resources stretched thin, more and more high-risk infants are sent south to find a bed

LISA PRIEST

 

From Monday's Globe and Mail

 

May 5, 2008 at 3:49 AM EDT

 

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.

 

André 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.”

Jade Pascoe of Cranbrook, B.C., holds her son last week in the intensive care unit at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, Wash. Nevin James William Moore weighed just 1 pound, 10 ounces when he was born at the end of March. Jed Conklin for The Globe and Mail

 

Jade Pascoe of Cranbrook, B.C., holds her son last week in the intensive care unit at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, Wash. Nevin James William Moore weighed just 1 pound, 10 ounces when he was born at the end of March. (Jed Conklin for The Globe and Mail)

 

A national birthing initiative, he said, is urgently required to ensure services are planned, guidelines on the best way to care for these patients are implemented, and a stronger focus is placed on maternity patient safety.

 

For the rest... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080505.wpregnant05/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

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