Nevaeh Crain was an 18-year-old pregnant woman who went through three hospital rooms. The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without wondering what her sharp abdominal cramps were. At the second, she tested positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave. Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician did two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care. By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing. Hours later, she was dead.
This hospital case was not treated like an emergency—some of this being due to strict laws against abortion in Texas where she was from. States with abortion bans are playing “hot potato” with patients, health care providers, and hospitals. Medical teams are wasting a lot of time on legal things like documents for the court, jury, etc. In Texas, abortion laws threaten prison time, legal repercussions, etc. However, almost 4 decades ago, a federal law was passed requiring emergency rooms to stabilize patients in medical crises. The Biden administration has bickered that this mandate applies when an abortion may be needed.
There were more than 800 pages of Crain’s medical records, and many professors and doctors reviewed these documents. Some said that the ER missed signs of infection that needed attention. They also noted that the doctor shouldn’t have sent her home on Crain’s second visit to the hospital. Then on her third visit, the medical reviewers said the doctors shouldn’t have waited for the 2 ultrasounds that they did. What the reviewers said they should have done was take immediate action to try and save her.
Both Nevaeh and her mom morally thought abortion was wrong. When they discovered that Crain was pregnant with a girl they talked all the time about the new addition to their family. But when she got sick the mom thought that the doctors would have an obligation to do everything that they could do to prevent a death or deaths. In the mom’s view, the doctors were more concerned about checking the fetal heartbeat than attending Crain.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/03/health/texas-fetal-demise-propublica/index.html
