Vox, August 10, 2020: America is failing Black moms during the pandemic
Ashlee Paisley was about 23 weeks pregnant when her doctor told her that her iron levels were so low, she would need regular infusion treatments. But it was March, the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping the country, and the last thing she wanted to do was go to an emergency room.
Paisley was able to find an outpatient center to get the infusions, where staff members were scheduling only two patients at a time. Still, with Covid-19 cases rising where she lived in Miami, going to a medical office regularly was “a nerve-wracking thing,” she told Vox. She had to wait two hours for the medication to be delivered, then two more hours for the treatment, all the while exposed to people in the center.
Then, when she called the center ahead of her fifth treatment, she was told it was closed due to the pandemic.
“We’re just going to send everybody to the ER,” a hospital staffer told her over the phone.
