Dozens of protesters rally outside Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday, demanding that the health system acknowledge “system failure” in its maternal care and set up a board to investigate racial disparities, saying a federal agreement with Cedars-Sinai It is not far away enough to protect patients.
“For those who have the ability to change the system, we hope you do better,” said Gabrielle Brown, who coordinates Black women’s mother and baby health programs in education and advocacy groups.
The protests were led by 4KIRA4MOMS, founded by Charles Johnson, whose wife Kira Dixon Johnson bleed in Cedars-Sinai after a cesarean section nearly nine years ago. W husband Prosecution Cedars-Sinai and the doctor participated in her care and eventually reached the settlement of these lawsuits.
Cedars-Sinai said in a statement that it has the “common goal of ensuring high quality, safe and equitable care for all delivery patients” and has joined 4KIRA4MOMS and proposed to meet with the group.
The health system also said, “In the past decade, this has sparked a lot of efforts to understand and address the impact of bias in health care and promote equitable outcomes for our delivery patients, including the introduction of online tools to report allegedly on anonymously. Prejudice in labor and delivery environments.
After Kira Johnson’s death, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Civil Rights Office kicks off investigation Treatment of pregnant women of color in Cedars-Sinai.
Agent Tell the health system In November letter Its review “discovered that Cedars-Sinai may have engaged in a model of inaction and/or neglect of health risks associated with patients with black pregnant women.” Then, the Office of Civil Rights reached Voluntary Agreement The allegations faced by the health system were addressed last month with Cedars-Sinai.
The agreement should be monitored by federal officials for three years, including steps designed to improve the prognosis of pregnant women of color, including promoting opportunities to Duras during labor, and sharing findings about suspicious biased events reported to Cedars-Sinai .
Johnson and other advocates say the federal agreement is not what it needs to be. 4Kira4Moms have Called To make Cedars-Sinai suspend any clinicians associated with discrimination or negligence, and urge them to form an independent oversight committee to investigate racial disparities in care, among other steps.
What is missing from the agreement is community oversight and “accountability – acknowledging that they have problems”.
On January 16, four days before President Trump’s inauguration, a federal agreement with Cedars-Sinai was announced aim In a program focused on “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.” During the protests, Johnson urged the Trump administration to provide funding for the HHS Office of Civil Rights.
He said to cheer: “If you want to make sure that America is great, you can’t make sure that every single mother in this country has a safe, dignified childbirth experience.”
In California, Black women Maternal mortality rates are more than three times that of white women Status data Already shown. Across the country, a Recent Reports From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other groups of black women have decreased and maternal mortality rates cannot be improved.
Prior to Trump’s inauguration, the CDC’s website listed structural racism and implicit bias, which in many factors were attributed to the differences, echoing the long-term cited findings Health researchers and Advocate. As of early February, CDC website Changed to eliminate references to these factors, mentioning only differences in health care and potential chronic diseases.
