The town of Cactus on Jan. 29, 2020. Cactus is in the upper part of the Texas Panhandle, about 50 miles north of Amarillo.— a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.AMARILLO — Texas’ urban cities can offer women a luxe birthing suite, equipped with high-tech monitoring for mom and the baby, spacious rooms and a full team to handle any emergency.
The largest city near the top of the state — population 201,000 — serves as a medical hub for the rest of the 26 counties in the northern Panhandle, essentially an oasis in a maternal care desert. Women’s health advocates say the neverending fight over abortion access is ignoring the more pressing matters of expanding health care access to more than 122,000 girls and women between the ages of 10-54 in the Panhandle.
Texas women face countless challenges to their reproductive health. And in a state with the highest numbers of maternal deaths in the nation, women in rural areas fare worse. Maternal access is stretched thin in the Texas Panhandle — only eight hospitals, including those in Amarillo, have labor and delivery services for the upper 26 counties. And, it’s a national issue.
And even in these dire circumstances, pregnant women and new moms are more vulnerable during a significant time in their life. Only 64 of the remaining 158 rural hospitals in Texas still provide obstetrical and delivery services. The same report gave Texas a D- and found that nearly 47% of counties are a maternity care desert. The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee also recommends increasing access as the top recommendation to prevent maternal death and illness.
First, the mom-to-be would have to obtain insurance or Medicaid, which a Medicaid navigator could help with. Even if a mom in the Panhandle has a hospital with delivery services in her county, complications or high-risk factors could still send her to Amarillo’s major hospitals. Garner said Amarillo gets an “overwhelming majority” of high-risk pregnancies — emergency or not — for the Panhandle, parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma. In some cases, women are airlifted because the drive is too long.Garner said a lot of work is being done to close the gaps for pregnant women and mothers in the region.
“It’s not with the understanding of providing quality care for my patient,” Poage said. “It’s intentionally vague, anything I do can get me thrown in jail.”
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