CANTON,
Mass., Aug. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The
25,000-member Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) applauds the
lawmakers and key stakeholders that have succeeded in bringing
important maternal health legislation to the desk of Gov.
Maura Healey. MNA nurses and
healthcare professionals have long fought for solutions to
inequities in the state's maternal healthcare system that have
limited patient care access and led to negative outcomes for
vulnerable populations.
Legislators passed a maternal health bill on August 15. The bill expands access to midwives –
licensing, regulating, and offering Medicaid coverage to certified
professional midwives – and addresses an array of health concerns
both during and after a child's birth. It mandates MassHealth
coverage for doulas, who provide nonmedical emotional and physical
support before and after childbirth, up through a year after
pregnancy, and provides certified nurse midwives with MassHealth
reimbursement rates equivalent to those for physicians who provide
birthing care. The bill also establishes a task force to study the
availability of and access to maternal health services as well as
essential service closures of inpatient maternity units and acute
level birthing centers.
"MNA nurses and healthcare professionals have been advocating
for solutions to our maternal health crisis for many years,"
said MNA President and practicing ICU nurse Katie Murphy. "We would like to thank all of
those involved for their hard work, with special gratitude to the
Joint Committee on Public Health Chair, Representative Marjorie Decker, the Joint Committee on Health
Care Financing Chair, Senator Cindy
Friedman, Senator Liz
Miranda, and so many others who have worked tirelessly on
this issue.
"We look forward to building upon this foundation to ensure
access to essential services like maternity care for all
communities," Murphy said. "In response to the closure of
dozens of maternal and other hospital services across the state,
MNA nurses and healthcare professionals have filed legislation to
strengthen the state's essential healthcare services closure law
and have performed independent research on the impact of maternal
healthcare deserts."
In 2021, the MNA published a white paper titled "Massachusetts: Maternal Health Services are
Central to Racial and Social Justice" identifying access to
"reproductive care, including maternity and birth-related services,
as essential to racial and social justice. Unfortunately, due to
the state's lack of any viable regulatory authority to protect
these and other public health services, and a privatized health
care system that values a market-based health care model over its
mandate of ensuring the communities it serves the full spectrum of
health services, including maternity care, too many families are
seeing their access to these services curtailed, placing both
mother and newborns at unnecessary risk, particularly those living
in poorer communities and communities of color."
The paper called for the following actions:
- A moratorium on any further closure or reduction in maternity
services including midwifery services in the Commonwealth.
- Those geographic areas now suffering inadequate maternal care
services need to be made whole again.
- Trial projects including birth centers, nurse midwifery
programs, and doula care with funding provided by the Commonwealth.
In areas approaching maternity desert status, such as North Adams and southeastern Massachusetts, a cooperative maternity
hospital should be considered an option, designed with both
community and provider input.
- Programs targeted to increase the diversity and cultural
competency of healthcare providers.
- Updating of state laws and regulations to allow for the
imposition of fines or other penalties on facilities that close
services deemed "necessary for preserving and health status in a
particular service area."
- The Commonwealth should undertake a comprehensive evaluation of
what maternal/child services are needed in each geographic area in
order to serve the citizens of Massachusetts.
"Access to essential services has declined across the
Commonwealth because our healthcare system follows a corporate,
profit-driven Wall Street model and our state has limited powers to
ensure patients can receive necessary care," Murphy said.
"We need to re-center patients as the most important part of our
healthcare system rather than profits. We must ensure mothers and
babies, people suffering from mental health or substance use
issues, and all our most vulnerable residents are able to access
the care they need."
Hospital closures have become an intensive area of focus this
summer due to the Steward Health Care bankruptcy and resulting
fallout on patients and communities. Prior to Steward's proposed
closures, a long history of shuttered services reducing or
eliminating access to essential healthcare despite DPH hearings and
findings had prompted the MNA to work with its legislative partners
to propose a bill that would give the DPH, Attorney General, and
the public more tools to hold hospitals accountable for
closures.
Maternity services have been a specific target for these
closures, creating what the March of Dimes has characterized as
"maternity deserts," meaning regions where residents lack
appropriate access to needed maternity care, particularly for those
serving poorer communities and people of color. In 2022, a Special
Legislative Commission on Racial Inequalities in Maternal Health in
Massachusetts issued a
report showing how racial minorities are negatively impacted
by inequitable policies and practices, including lack of access to
appropriate maternal care.
In the last decade, Massachusetts has seen the loss of at least 10
maternity units – including most recently Leominster Hospital
maternity and the North Shore Birth Center – each of
which was evaluated by DPH and deemed essential to preserving the
health of those communities.
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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the
largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Its 25,000 members
advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of
nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of
nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view
of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies
on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association