By: Lacey Klotz
Just days before Hurricane Matthew ripped through Haiti, Steve Taylor, Lipscomb’s filmmaker-in-residence in the College of Entertainment & the Arts, was among 12 state leaders including former U.S. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, MD; founder and president of Thistle Farms Becca Stevens; and actor and author Kimberly Williams-Paisley; to tour Haiti focusing on humanitarian efforts supported by U.S. governmental funding.
Beginning Sept. 25 and ending Sept. 27, Hope Through Healing Hands, a Nashville-based global health organization, teamed up with CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, to provide a learning tour to Haiti with faith-based influencers to see how vital U.S. investments and partnerships are in improving health outcomes for women as well as their families and communities.
Within the three-day trip, delegates saw firsthand the role that U.S. investments play in building healthier, stronger and more resilient communities through health care services. These crucial health care services include pre- and post-natal care, nutrition counseling, healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies through family planning, and access to a variety of other health interventions, such as community health worker counseling and low-cost health insurance.
Since 1954, Haiti has worked to rebuild its country from Hurricane Hazel, as well as a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010, which together killed over 300,000 people.
“Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the country can’t seem to catch a break,” said Taylor. “Barely a week had passed since we left before Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti with deadly force. As bad as things are, they would be so much worse if it wasn’t for assistance and partnerships with organizations like CARE, USAID and many others, including a lot of faith-based NGOs.”
During the trip, Taylor says the team visited a number of health clinics and hospitals throughout Port-au-Prince and the Central Plateau regions of Haiti. They also met with partner organizations from the U.S., such as Project Medishare and J/P HRO, as well as Haitian women and community health agents to learn more about the successes and challenges they may encounter.
“We toured everything from health clinics and hospitals to microfinance co-ops,” said Taylor. “It’s hard not to be overwhelmed with the needs in Haiti, but I like the fact that Senator Frist’s organization starts with the word Hope.”
They also spent time with CARE’s Village Savings and Loan Association program, which helps women save and generate money in hopes that they will one day use the funds to generate small businesses and critical health services for their families.
Taylor said he has enjoyed sharing his experience with his students at Lipscomb, especially his visit to a microfinance co-op.
“One of the most impactful visits was to a microfinance co-op made up of about a dozen poor women who pool their resources, loan each other small amounts of money at a low interest rate, then work as a group to help each other become self-sufficient and insure the loans get repaid,” said Taylor. “CARE has created over 40,000 of these Village Savings and Loans Associations throughout the developing world with over 1 million total members, and it’s having proven success.”
Taylor, who is a filmmaker, writer, producer and recording artist, was asked to be part of this trip because of his long activism and sustained interest in global health including HIV/AIDS, extreme poverty, and maternal and child health. He also had the opportunity to photograph and film the tour for public pieces that will be released within the coming months.
“As a prominent thought leader in the Christian community, his voice and credibility on the issues provide a gravitas to inform and educate people of faith the critical importance of funding for vulnerable populations around the world,” said Jenny Dyer, executive director for Hope Through Healing Hands.
“This learning tour to Haiti provided the opportunity for the delegation to trace USAID funding to specific women and children who were beneficiaries of healthcare and vaccinations because of our tax dollars. These are critical, life-saving investments, which provide a foundation of care for millions. These investments are crucial to provide sustained efforts to mitigate the affects of disasters, like Hurricane Matthew.”
Other participants of CARE’s September 2016 Learning Tour to Haiti include: Jenny Dyer, executive director, Hope Through Healing Hands; Cathleen Falsani, religion journalist, columnist and author; Tracy Frist, wwner, Sinking Creek Farm; Jennifer Grant, writer; Rachael Leman, senior director of citizen advocacy, CARE USA; Jo Saxton, director, 3DM; Meredith Walker, producer/executive director of Amy Poehler's Smart Girls; Tom Walsh, Senior program officer, Global Policy and advocacy, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Corinne Williams-Anderson, education management Professional/CARE USA Advocate; and Rita Wray, vice president, E3 Vanguard/CARE USA Advocate.
About CARE
Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor girls and women because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. Last year CARE worked in 90 countries and reached more than 72 million people around the world. For more information visit: www.care.org/.
About Hope Through Healing Hands
Hope Through Healing Hands is a nonprofit 501(c) 3 whose mission is to promote improved quality of life for citizens and communities around the world using health as a currency for peace. Through the prism of health diplomacy, Hope Through Healing Hands seeks sustainability through health care service and training. This includes efforts for maternal, newborn & child health; healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies; clean water; extreme poverty; emergency relief; and global disease such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. For more information visit: www.hopethroughhealinghands.org
This article originally appeared on Lipscomb.edu.
By Kimberly Johnson
As a group we visited the World Mate Emergency Hospital in Battambang. This hospital is doing incredible things, with a quarter of the resources that we have in the United States. The patient population of this hospital consists of men, women, and children that have been victims of severe, and some times life threatening injuries. The most common injury that our group observed at this hospital was motor vehicle accidents, including motos. This is no surprise since Cambodia does not have any traffic laws, or helmet laws.By Kimberly Johnson
As we traveled through the country of Cambodia we sang worship songs; it was incredible to me that 9 American girls and 2 Cambodian men knew almost all of the same worship songs. We all come from different backgrounds, histories, and families but we were all in the same place, worshiping the same God together.By Kimberly Johnson
As human beings we must always seek to see one another as valued individuals. Diversity is a gift. We can, and should learn to value differences. By following these three steps in your own life, you can grow and become more connected to the differences and needs of those surrounding you.By: Bill Frist, M.D.
This piece is coauthored by Saketh R. Guntupalli, MD, FACOG, FACS. Dr. Guntupalli is assistant professor of gynecologic oncology at University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver.
This past year, the United States received the dubious distinction of being one of only 7 countries in the world, including Somalia and Afghanistan, which have seen an increase in maternal mortality.
While countries with far fewer resources such as India and Brazil have made great strides to decrease the number of women who die each year as a result of pregnancy, our nation has more than doubled its rate of maternal mortality in the last twenty-five years (28 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in 2013, up from 12 in 1990). Since 2005, it has increased more than 20%. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as many as half of these maternal deaths are preventable. This begs the question: How can we lead the world in cutting-edge health innovation and medical discoveries, yet fall behind in this telling public health metric?
The reasons for the increase are complex.
The first is tied to our nation’s leading public health problem: obesity. While traditional causes of maternal mortality such as hemorrhage and eclampsia have remained relatively flat, obesity-related illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease have increased the risk associated with pregnancy, and led to labor complications, higher-risk surgical procedures, and in-utero fetal death. As our nation’s obesity rate has skyrocketed, so has our maternal death rate. And underserved, low-income, and inner-city communities—which tend to have higher obesity rates—have been hardest hit. The death rate for African-American women in pregnancy is nearly four times that of white women—even after correcting for differences in other medical conditions.
We must modify our approach to recognize the health of the woman prior to conception is just as important, if not more important, than health during pregnancy. Women who are uninsured and haven’t benefitted from primary care services are three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than those who have insurance coverage. While Medicaid provides emergency coverage for uninsured pregnant women, this can take time to go into effect in some states, and often doesn’t last long after birth. Many deaths occur in the post-delivery period after the expiration of emergency Medicaid benefits. While the WHO defines maternal mortality as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days of birth, miscarriage or termination of pregnancy, studies have found mortality is still “significantly elevated” in the three months following pregnancy. Because many post-partum deaths result from diseases such as hypertension and other chronic medical conditions, the loss of coverage can substantially increase the risk for death. In addition to further expanding coverage for our nation’s uninsured, women should receive emergency coverage for a longer post-partum period to decrease rates of maternal mortality and better offer their children the care that they deserve.
Another growing issue that must be better addressed prior to pregnancy is the rising rate of opioid abuse, which has increased tremendously among all demographic groups in the last decade. Pregnant women are no exception, seeing a 127% increase in opioid use from 1998 to 2011, which translates into significant risk for maternal death. This also increases the risk for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) or withdrawal of the newborn from narcotics, which can cause long term cognitive and developmental delays in children. Connecting these women to support services in the community through a coordinated care approach—which is increasingly covered under value-based models of reimbursement—can help them detox and get off opiates for the duration of their pregnancy.
Lastly, federal and state funding for maternal health must be a priority, and policies must be enacted to ensure our expecting mothers get the best possible care. This year, Texas achieved the sad distinction of being one of the most dangerous places in the industrialized world for a woman to have a baby. Like many public health challenges, the causes are multifactorial. The state’s decision not to expand Medicaid, significant cuts in funding to women’s health clinics, and shortage of substance abuse treatment resources and mental health coverage likely all played a role.
Other nations have put in place frameworks to improve care for high-risk pregnancies. Since 1990, the global maternal mortality rate fell by almost half while ours doubled. A 2010 study published in The Lancet, which looked at international maternal mortality data over three decades, found over 180,000 fewer maternal deaths annually in 2008 compared to 1980. This significant progress is attributed to varying factors including higher income (translating into better nutrition and healthcare), better education access for women, increase in health providers, and access to antiretrovirals in areas with high rates of HIV/AIDS. Improved family planning and healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies also played a role, something Nashville-based humanitarian organization Hope Through Healing Hands has helped advocate with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In Europe, countries such as Denmark, the U.K. and the Netherlands have adopted national hospital guidelines for high-risk pregnancies—an area where the U.S. lags behind. While national bodies such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists publish guidelines for managing many disorders in pregnancy, hospitals are not required to adopt them. Therefore we have “patchwork” in the U.S. of inconsistent management particularly for high-risk pregnancies. National standards for hospitals should be adopted to ensure that women around the country with similar problems receive a baseline of care that is validated by experts. Additionally, a national database of maternal deaths should be implemented to best observe trends and adopt needed changes.
For the small but increasing number of pregnant women today experiencing deadly complications, it reminds us that pregnancy is not without risks and should be managed under the care of a trained provider. Setting the above standards, in addition to establishing a new approach to women’s health that focuses on the social determinants prior to pregnancy, will be vital to reducing maternal mortality. The U.S. should be the safest place in the world to have a child, but we have work to do to make that goal a reality.