Since January, Dr. Stacey Seib, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Boise, Idaho, has flown out of state on emergency flights at least four patients experiencing serious pregnancy complications.
One of the women was a woman whose water broke around 20 weeks into her pregnancy, putting her at risk for infection. In these types of emergencies, terminating the patient’s pregnancy may be part of the standard of care. But doctors at Seib’s hospital say they are forced to transport patients with these complications out of state to comply with the state’s abortion ban.
“It’s sad that this has become the new normal,” he said.
Idaho bans all abortions, and those who perform or facilitate abortions face up to five years in prison. The law includes limited exceptions for rape, incest, and saving the mother’s life, but no exceptions for protecting the mother’s health.
Following oral arguments Wednesday, the Supreme Court is now considering whether Idaho’s abortion ban violates a federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency medical care to patients in crisis. So far, the justices appear divided on the issue, with some of the more conservative justices siding with Idaho, which argues that federal law should not override the state’s own health care laws. It seems like it is.
St. Luke’s Health System, which includes the hospital where Seib works, filed amicus briefs in the lawsuit to protect patients from non-fatal harm such as organ loss, permanent disability, severe pain and loss of fertility. He pointed out that abortion may be important for this purpose. . It also said the ban would force patients to endure potentially dangerous out-of-state travel.
Dr. Jim Souza, chief physician at St. Luke’s Hospital, said six pregnant women at St. Luke’s have died since the Supreme Court lifted the injunction on Jan. 5 that protected emergency medical doctors. He said he had to be flown in from Idaho. Luke’s. There was only one such transfer in the system last year, he said.
In a press conference after Wednesday’s arguments, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador (R) questioned the explanation given by the doctors who transferred the patients. “It’s really hard to think of a single instance where a woman had to be flown out of Idaho to have an abortion,” he said.
“Our laws are very clear,” he said. “This protects the doctor, it protects the woman, it protects the fetus, and it allows the doctor to use a subjective standard if he or she believes the mother’s life is at risk.”
Out-of-state medical transportation can delay needed care and impose significant financial and emotional costs on pregnant patients far from home during one of the most difficult times in their lives. Airline tickets can cost him more than $10,000, and transportation costs are also considered out-of-network by insurance, increasing the patient’s out-of-pocket costs.
One of the most common complications, Souza said, is when a patient’s water breaks during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Last year, the hospital system had 54 such cases, most of which occurred before the fetus was viable.
Physicians for Human Rights, a group that advocates for abortion rights, also filed a brief in the Supreme Court case. The report cites a March report in which the organization interviewed several doctors who practice or practice in Idaho, as well as doctors based in neighboring states who accepted transported patients.
Dr. Salina Heyer, an internist in Oregon, said she accepted a critically ill patient when she flew in from Idaho. The patient was 18 weeks pregnant with twins and suffered severe pregnancy complications. The patient also had a history of kidney problems, and she had previously undergone a transplant.
Doctors at her hospital in Idaho determined that one of her fetuses had died and test results were alarming. She told her doctors “I want them to do whatever they have to do, including firing me,” the report said. However, she was eventually airlifted to Oregon. The next morning, she also lost another fetus.
If the woman had started nursing in Oregon, Heyer said she would have been offered termination almost immediately.
“Are there any other medical conditions that require a sick patient to be transferred to another state for legal reasons?” Heyer told NBC News. “It just feels really unfair.”
“By not providing definitive care until women are on the brink of death, we are, in a sense, torturing them,” said Michele Heisler, medical director of Physicians for Human Rights. said the doctor. interview. “I think that’s the bet here.”
Doctors in Idaho also described situations in which patients with severe pregnancy complications are unable to leave the state to seek treatment.
Dr. Michael Schneider, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Boise, recalled a patient whose water broke at around 20 weeks, but who refused to be airlifted out of state, in part because she couldn’t be away from her family. Cost was also a concern. The woman left the hospital, but she said she returned when she went into labor. She started her labor, but her fetus did not survive.
In his decades in medicine, Schneider has learned that pregnant women are deeply vulnerable. On the first night of training at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a patient with sepsis died.
“That’s what makes me worried: someone might be in danger, the transport system might break down, my mother might be seriously injured,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than two losses.”
