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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Katherine McFadden, Midwife and Former NICU Nurse at SUNY Downstate, on Racial Disparities in Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes
3:49:01
ยท
3 min
Katherine McFadden, a midwife and former NICU nurse, testified about the racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes in New York City, particularly in minority-serving hospitals. She emphasized the need for increased funding for the public hospital system and proposed solutions to address these disparities.
- Highlighted research showing that black infants and mothers receive poorer care at certain minority-serving hospitals
- Recommended increasing the budget for NYC Health + Hospitals, potentially by reallocating funds from other departments or taxing private hospitals
- Suggested putting pressure on state-level colleagues to pass the New York Health Act as an alternative solution
Katherine McFadden
3:49:01
Hi.
3:49:01
My name is Catherine McFadden.
3:49:03
Sisson, I am a midwife and a former NICU nurse at SUNY Downstate.
3:49:07
I was pushed out of that position in retaliation pervert for providing testimony about, patient care conditions in a setting much like this several years ago.
3:49:17
I'm here to speak for the mothers and the babies who are dying and will continue to die preventively, because of the conditions that have been elucidated by so many of the speakers who have come before me.
3:49:31
We know that New York City has the largest racial disparities in infant and maternal outcomes.
3:49:37
It is 1 to the 4 black babies die for every one of their white counterparts, whereas 8 to 9 and 8 to 9 black women die as, for every one of their white counterparts.
3:49:50
Research from Doctor.
3:49:51
Elizabeth Howell has shown that this disparity would drop by half if black, infants and mothers were receiving care at the same institutions or institutions that were as safe as the institutions that a majority of white birthing people use.
3:50:10
And that research further says that essentially half of this disparity is because of a poor level of care at a concentrated set of minority serving hospitals, and was anonymized for the research, but everyone here can recognize that we are talking about Kings County, Woodhall, SUNY Downstate, and other, other hospitals that serve upwards of 80% of black patients.
3:50:41
The conditions that cause the care at those hospitals to be poor are not new.
3:50:46
Many, people have spoken to that today.
3:50:49
An article in the times from 1988 say many women seek prenatal care at city facilities and are forced to wait weeks to be seen when they receive care disaster and rough rushed and impersonal.
3:51:01
Munoz Hill Hospital maternity
Mitch Katz
3:51:03
Thank you.
3:51:03
Time's expired.
Katherine McFadden
3:51:06
The in summary, recommendations, we've already been said we need to make the pot bigger.
3:51:15
$1,000,000,000, we heard in testimony comes from the city budget, whereas the city gives 11,000,000,000 to the NYPD.
3:51:24
And I promise you we will have a healthier and safer New Yorker with diversion of funds to the hospital system as opposed to systems that have proven not to keep New Yorkers safe.
3:51:37
Also, the private hospital systems are do not are not charities, do not operate as charities, and should not receive tax deductions as if they are charities.
3:51:47
Taxing them could fund the public hospital system.
3:51:50
They have also influenced legislation, which causes, $1,000,000,000 dis, dis appropriation of federal funding that should go to the public
Deborah Shapiro
3:52:01
hospitals, but instead go to the private hospitals.
Katherine McFadden
3:52:01
That would go a long way to That would go a long way to expanding the pool to cover more doctors.
3:52:09
And if you the City Council is not willing to take the steps to drastically increase the H and h budget, I would encourage you then to put more pressure on your colleagues at the state level for to pass the New York Health Act, because as described by other activists, that would also solve many of these core issues that underlie New York City system of magnetical apartheid.