March 20, 2023

It's not just that doctors can't provide lifesaving abortions -- it's that doctors and their families can't get abortions if they need them. This doctor shortage is happening all over the country, but it's execerbated by the many med school graduates who are limiting their match applications to blue states with abortion rights. Via the Idaho Statesman:

Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, announced Friday that it will no longer provide obstetrical services to the city of more than 9,000 people, meaning patients will have to drive 46 miles for labor and delivery care.

The hospital’s board of directors and senior leadership called the decision emotional and difficult, and cited a loss of pediatricians, changing demographics and Idaho’s legal and political climate around health care as the reasons. “We have made every effort to avoid eliminating these services,” said Ford Elsaesser, the hospital’s board president, in a news release. “We hoped to be the exception, but our challenges are impossible to overcome now.”

[...] The release also said highly respected, talented physicians are leaving the state, and recruiting replacements will be “extraordinarily difficult.” Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, with affirmative defenses in court only for documented instances of rape, incest or to save the pregnant person’s life. Physicians are subject to felony charges and the revocation of their medical licenses for violating the statute, which the Idaho Supreme Court in January determined is constitutional.

Here's a piece from New York Magazine last week that talked about how medical students were limiting their choices:

OB/GYN residency programs must train resident physicians on abortion care in order to be accredited. However, about 45 percent of the country’s 286 OB/GYN residency programs are located in states that have banned or will likely ban abortion, according to a recent analysis by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Those institutions have been scrambling to find workarounds to meet the accreditation requirements, such as sending residents out-of-state, and such volatility could be unappealing to prospective residents like Al Abosy. “This is the foundation of my training to become an attending,” they say. “That’s maybe not a risk I want to take.”

[...] Swartz is concerned that restrictive states will continue to lose health care providers who have that maternity care knowledge to states that protect abortion, impacting both patients and the next generation of doctors who are left behind. Dr. Debessai says she plans to stay and practice in Georgia once she finishes her residency, but she has a lot of sympathy for the students who just underwent the matching process and those who will do so in years to come. “It’s unfortunate we have to think about the legalities when choosing your residency. We don’t see this in other fields,” she says. “Other fields don’t have legal counsel on call in the middle of the night.”

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon