New, National Amnesty International Report Finds Appalling U.S. Death Rate for Women Having Babies, Systemic Failures and Shocking Disparities in Maternal Health Care System; Georgia is 50th Among All States in Maternal Mortality

/PRNewswire/ -- In releasing a new report on maternal health nationwide, Amnesty International today revealed that flaws and shocking disparities in maternal health care that the government is ignoring lead to two to three women dying daily in the United States from pregnancy-related complications, with half of these deaths believed preventable, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A state-by-state examination shows that Georgia is 50th on a maternal mortality ranking, with 20.5 deaths per 100,000 live births.*

The new Amnesty International report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, also reveals that severe pregnancy-related complications that nearly cause death -- known as "near misses" -- are rising at an alarming rate, increasing by 25 percent since 1998; currently nearly 34,000 women annually experience a "near miss" during delivery. With a lifetime risk of maternal deaths that is greater than in 40 other countries, including virtually all of the industrialized countries, the United States has failed to reverse the two-decade upward trend in preventable maternal deaths, despite pledges to do so.

The report cited numerous causes for the crisis and offers lengthy recommendations on improving maternal health care.

Inadequate prenatal care is cited as a contributing factor in the crisis; women who do not get prenatal care are three to four times more likely to die than women who do. In Georgia, almost one in six women (15.8 percent) receive delayed or no prenatal care. The number rises to one in five women (21.9 percent) among women of color.

Obstacles to care are widespread: the most obvious being that across the United States nearly 13 million women of reproductive age (15 to 44), or one in five, have no health insurance. In Georgia nearly one in five women (19.7 percent) are uninsured; among women of color the number of uninsured climbs to 27.6 percent. The state's Medicaid eligibility level for working parents is also very low, $9,072. Lack of access to health care centers and providers is a problem nationwide, the report found; in Georgia 41 percent of women live in medically underserved areas.

"No issue can be more central to the health and well-being of our nation than maternal health care," said Jared Feuer, Southern Regional Director for Amnesty International USA. "The government should accept its duty and its moral obligation to address this inexcusable crisis by developing a comprehensive plan to ensure quality health care for all pregnant women. If the federal government can address steroid use in baseball, certainly lawmakers can address maternal health, which affects every family in the United States."

Maternal health is a human right for every woman in the United States, regardless of race or income. Yet, the United States lacks a systematic, robust government response to this critical problem. Amnesty International is urging President Obama to work with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to establish, and seek Congressional funding, for a single office responsible for ensuring that all women receive quality maternal health care. An Office of Maternal Health would lead government action to reduce the soaring pregnancy-related complications and maternal deaths nationwide.

Additionally, Amnesty International calls for vigorous enforcement of federal non-discrimination laws and an increase in support for Federally Qualified Health Centers by 2011 to expand the number of women who can access affordable maternal health care.

"This country's extraordinary record of medical advancement makes its haphazard approach to maternal care all the more scandalous and disgraceful," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "Mothers die not because the United States can't provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women."

Amnesty International's analysis shows that health care reform before Congress does not address the crisis of maternal health care.

"Reform is primarily focused on health care coverage and reducing health care costs, and even optimistic estimates predict that any proposal on the table will still leave millions without access to affordable care," said Rachel Ward, one of the authors of the Deadly Delivery report. "Furthermore, it does not address discrimination, systemic failures and government accountability documented in Amnesty International's report."

Rapid and comprehensive federal leadership is required, as the report found numerous systemic failures, including the following:

-- Burdensome bureaucratic procedures in Medicaid enrollment
substantially delay access to vital prenatal care for pregnant women
seeking government-funded care. Twenty-one states do not offer
"presumptive eligibility" which allows pregnant women to temporarily
access medical care while their permanent application for Medicaid is
pending. Women who do not receive any prenatal care are three to four
times more likely to die than women who do.
-- The number of deaths is significantly understated because there are no
federal requirements to report maternal deaths or complications and
data collection at the state level is insufficient.
-- Oversight and accountability is lacking. 29 states and the District of
Columbia have no maternal death review process at all.


Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

For more information or to take action, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org/deadlydelivery

*National Women's Law Center, National Report Card on Women's Health, Maternal Mortality Rate Table; available at

http://hrc.nwlc.org/Status-Indicators/Key-Conditions/Maternal-Mortality-Ra te.aspx.

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HHS Awards $17 Million in a New National Initiative to Fight Health Care-Associated Infections

/PRNewswire/ -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the award of $17 million to fund projects to fight costly and dangerous health care-associated infections, or HAIs.

"When patients go to the hospital, they expect to get better, not worse," Secretary Sebelius said. "Eliminating infections is critical to making care safer for patients and to improving the overall quality and safety of the health care system. We know that it can be done, and this new initiative will help us reach our goal."

HAIs are one of the most common complications of hospital care. Nearly 2 million patients develop HAIs, which contribute to 99,000 deaths each year and $28 billion to $33 billion in health care costs. HAIs are caused by different types of bacteria that infect patients being treated in a hospital or health care setting for other conditions. The most common HAI-causing bacteria is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The number of MRSA-associated hospital stays has more than tripled since 2000, reaching 368,600 in 2005, according to HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

Of the $17 million, $8 million will fund a national expansion of the Keystone Project, which within 18 months successfully reduced the rate of central-line blood stream infections in more than 100 Michigan intensive care units and saved 1,500 lives and $200 million. The project was originally started by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association to implement a comprehensive unit-based safety program. The program involves using a checklist of evidence-based safety practices; staff training and other tools for preventing infections that can be implemented in hospital units; standard and consistent measurement of infection rates; and tools to improve teamwork among doctors, nurses and hospital leaders.

Last year, AHRQ funded an expansion of this project to 10 states. With additional funding from AHRQ and a private foundation, the Keystone Project is now operating in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The new funding announced today will expand the effort to more hospitals, extend it to other settings in addition to ICUs, and broaden the focus to address other types of infections. Specifically, the new $8 million in funding will provide:

-- $6 million to the Health Research & Educational Trust for national
efforts to expand the Comprehensive Unit-Based Patient Safety Program
to Reduce Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infections. The funding
will allow more hospitals in all 50 states to participate in the
program and expand the program's reach into hospital settings outside
of the ICU. The Health Research & Educational Trust will also use $1
million to support a demonstration project that will help fight
catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

-- $1 million to Yale University to support a comprehensive plan to
prevent bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients.


AHRQ, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also identified several high-priority areas to apply the remaining $9 million toward reducing MRSA and other types of HAIs. These projects will focus on:

-- Reducing Clostridium difficile infections through a regional hospital
collaborative.
-- Reducing the overuse of antibiotics by primary care clinicians
treating patients in ambulatory and long-term care settings.
-- Evaluating two ways to eliminate MRSA in ICUs.
-- Improving the measurement of the risk of infections after surgery.
-- Identifying national-, regional- and state-level rates of HAIs that
are acquired in the acute care setting.
-- Reducing infections caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae
Carbapenemase-producing organisms by applying recently developed
recommendations from CDC's Healthcare Infection Control Practices
Advisory Committee.
-- Standardizing antibiotic use in long-term care settings (two
projects).
-- Implementing teamwork principles for frontline health care providers.

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CDC Foundation Partners with Amgen, CDC to Reduce Infections Among Cancer Patients

/PRNewswire / -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundation, CDC and Amgen today announced the launch of a three-year campaign to reduce infections among cancer patients. The campaign will provide resources and educational tools to help patients, families and healthcare providers better prevent and manage treatment-related infections.

"Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are at a higher risk for infections, which can impact their treatment success, lead to hospitalization and cause life-threatening complications," says Charles Stokes, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation. "This partnership between the CDC Foundation, CDC and Amgen brings together experts and resources from government and the private sector to address a critical health issue for cancer patients."

Each year, according to a 2005 study published in Cancer, 60,000 cancer patients in the United States are hospitalized for chemotherapy-related neutropenia - or low white blood cell count - which is a risk for serious infection, and a patient dies every two hours from this complication.

Healthcare professionals are highly concerned about the impact that infections have on treatment outcomes. According to a new Harris Interactive, Inc. survey of oncologists, infectious disease (ID) specialists and patients, 92 percent of oncologists say it is extremely to very important to prevent infections to achieve successful outcomes in chemotherapy patients.

Physicians are also concerned about emerging antibiotic resistance in this population, with 96 percent of ID specialists and 79 percent of oncologists reporting an increase in antibiotic-resistant infections in cancer patients over the past five years.

"We know that patients who acquire drug-resistant infections have more severe illness and higher risk of death," says Arjun Srinivasan, M.D., a medical epidemiologist in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at CDC. "Programs to improve infection control in cancer patients, whose immune systems may be compromised by chemotherapy, will aid in saving the lives of these high-risk patients."

The comprehensive education campaign will include curricula for healthcare professionals on infection control for cancer patients and appropriate antibiotic management to prevent resistance. It will also include an online education program for patients and caregivers.

"We believe joining forces with the CDC Foundation and CDC on this important public health initiative helps us achieve our mission to serve patients by bringing together experts in infectious disease and cancer to improve infection control and promote appropriate antibiotic stewardship for these high-risk patients," says Sean Harper, M.D., chief medical officer and head of Global Development at Amgen.

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