Letters to the Editor: June 5, 2022
IRC program prepares women to give their babies a healthy start
Recent articles about maternal mortality emphasize an important point: Nationally and in Florida, Black mothers have much higher risks in pregnancy than others, whether Hispanic or white. However, there is an effort to overcome this in Indian River County.
The IRC Hospital District funds costs associated with the Partners in Women’s Health initiative in association with Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. The program provides prenatal, postnatal and gynecologic services to women regardless of insurance status, ability to pay or race. Embedded in this program, also funded by the Hospital District, are services provided by Healthy Start Coalition. Addressing the social determinants of health prepares pregnant mothers to give their babies the healthiest start possible.
Over the latest reported 20-year period, there have been two maternal deaths reported in IRC, one white in 2005 and one Black in 2010. (We understand that single Black death was the result of a traffic accident and the mother was brought to the hospital in an attempt to save the baby’s life.) Without this single unfortunate death, IRC would have zero Black maternal mortality.
As reported in the articles, Florida averages 19 maternal deaths per 100,000 births. Over 20 years, there were 24,191 births in Indian River County (data provided by IRCHSC). The comparable rate for IRC is 8.27 maternal deaths per 100,000 births. The IRC rate of maternal mortality is less than half the state average. That’s a projected 11 lives saved per 100,000 births compared to Florida outcomes.
This unique program in Indian River county is providing lifesaving services to expectant mothers, an estimated 70% of whom have at least one high-risk condition. Mothers, particularly those at high risk during a pregnancy, need to know such services exist and are available regardless of insurance status, ability to pay or race.
Andrea Berry is the executive director of IRC Healthy Start; Megan McFall is the director of Women’s Health at the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital; Dr. Felix Bigay is an OB/GYN at CCIRH.
Music therapist’s visit is the highlight of my mother’s week (and family's, too)
My mother spends most of her days and nights asleep in her small bedroom in the memory-care unit of a Vero Beach nursing home. She is 88 and suffers from dementia. Her spiral down over the past few years has been agonizing for me and my two middle school-aged boys to watch.
A bright spot — actually a glowing, shining spot — each week is the time the four of us spend with a music therapist from the Visiting Nurse Association.
Each week, for about an hour, I, my sons and therapist Emma von Weissenberg conduct a “jam session” in my mother’s cozy room. My mother comes alive as we play instruments, learn musical notes and go back in time to music my mother remembers.
Sometimes we just make funky noise with Emma’s rolling crate of instruments. Sometimes we create a storyline to go with the funky noise. My sons, 11 and almost 13, lose themselves in the concerts and my mother delights in seeing them and interacting with them for that hour.
Emma is spectacular with my mother — far more patient with her than I am. She has become the glue that binds our musical notes and our hearts for an hour each week.
All of which is to say, I am so appreciative to the VNA for this program that sends a small group of music therapists into the community to minister to those who spend their days locked in a vacuum of forgotten memories.
The VNA is largely donation funded. I don’t know how much it costs to run the music therapy program or how long it has been around or whether it will remain. But I do know it is making a mark on this family’s life that will never be forgotten.
Adam Chrzan, Vero Beach
LGBTQ+ resource guide sends funds-fueled message
The Indian River school board tried to sweep away a not ready-for-prime-time gender resource guide at its public last meeting, but an alert member got this mess to the floor. An LGBTQ+ resource guide was thrown out for discussion as a result of a FOIA request. An intensified “anti-discrimination” LGBTQ+ document, having been kept under wraps for who knows how long, met the light of day, and many residents are not happy. After the superintendent’s disclaimer that this “guide” would be more sculpted before the next school year, we heard the gist and a few folks got to vent.
In part:
Action 3: Refer to all students by the gender pronoun … consistent with their self-identified gender identity. (Goodbye, English grammar.)
Action 4: All students are allowed to access locker rooms and restrooms that are consistent with their gender identity. (You can see why this guide was on the down-low.)
Action 5: All eligible students should have the opportunity to participate in a manner consistent with their gender identity. (I can see female kickers on the football team, but 200-pound boys in girls’ softball?)
Action 8: All faculty, staff and students should feel empowered (revealing word) to be open about their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression at school. (“Gender expression” at school?)
Why do schools need this “coming out”? May have something to do with federal funds being held up if anyone is bullied over gay issues in public schools. There’s a May 5 Department of Agriculture press release on combatting LGBTQI+ discrimination. The message is clear. The feds are dangling funding to comply with their commands.
Norman Grant, Vero Beach
Many medical conditions can create ‘a need for abortion’
Joan Hall’s May 18 letter suggested that with the prevalence of available birth control, there “shouldn’t be any need for abortion.”
Consider these situations, some of which occur or are detected near the end of the first trimester or later:
Ectopic pregnancies.
Severe physical abnormalities, such as anencephaly (development without a brain) or renal agenesis (development without kidneys).
Anembryonic gestation (fetal heartbeat stops).
Natural miscarriage with hemorrhaging.
Preeclampsia before fetus is viable.
Appendicitis in mother in late stage of pregnancy.
Sepsis in mother.
Chemotherapy in mother.
Nobody wants to have an abortion when the pregnancy is wanted. But to deny life-saving measures is unconscionable. Let’s not turn the clock back 50 years on safe, legal medical practices that have been ensuring American women’s reproductive health.
Kit Shappie, Vero Beach
President Biden didn’t singlehandedly cause economic crisis in 18 months
It is remarkable to me that some voters blame whoever is president when landlords raise rents, or grocery stores, gas stations or manufacturers raise prices. When prices increase, that isn’t the president; that’s capitalism. Corporations raised their prices as soon as the minimum wage increased, thanks to so-called free enterprise. It is my opinion that capitalism determines the economy and government struggles to prevent crises (and minimize corruption).
The COVID-19 pandemic crippled businesses, jobs, schools, churches, and paralyzed supply/demand. Too many American citizens have become homeless and the real estate market is out of control.
But President Biden didn’t cause our economic crisis singlehandedly in less than two years. It was building while Donald Trump was in office, and Barack Obama and George W. Bush. And for how much are we voters responsible? For instance, how many voters have cried, “No new taxes” but accepted federal subsidy checks from the past two presidents? Those checks were funded by our tax system.
The economy is cyclical. It took 36 years and four presidents — from World War II to 1981 — for interest rates to rise to almost 20%, and another 40 years (and six presidents) to gradually decline to today’s rates.
Yet nightly news (left and right) would have us think that we are on the brink of economic disaster.
Recessions in the U.S. occur every five to 10 years. The Great Recession was in 2008. We are actually overdue. And still, the president is blamed and his agenda is trashed in the midterm elections. We give him two years to perform the impossible, then render him powerless by electing an oppositional Congress in the midterms. No wonder Washington gets so little done.
Sharon Kolor, Vero Beach
This administration puts America last
I don’t know about you but I am really worried about the future of our country. Things seem to be getting only worse, not better.
American moms can’t find baby formula but there are pallets at the border.
The Biden administration is always a day late, a dollar short when it comes to dealing with our problems — inflation, supply-chain disruptions, high gas prices, baby food shortage and crime — while completely ignoring illegal immigration at the southern border. Their solution is to blame others.
This shouldn’t be a surprise when the Biden administration hires based on color of skin and gender rather than competence.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, just confirmed to the Supreme Court, was nominated because she is Black and a woman. Yet she was unable to define what a woman is.
The leak of a draft of a Supreme Court ruling has left both the integrity of the court and trust within the court at risk. Protesters have been going to the homes of the justices in an effort to intimidate them, despite this being against the law. No one has been arrested.
The media and the White House have mostly been silent on the potential for violence. Sounded like a threat to me when Sen. Chuck Schumer said, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh … you will pay the price.”
In addition, they have been saying that overruling Roe v. Wade will ban abortion when in reality it returns the decision to the states. Facts don’t matter.
What bothers me the most is the delight in which some speak of ending the lives of babies. Human life doesn’t seem to be as precious as it once was.
The last administration put America first, this one puts America last
Betsy DiBenedetto, Vero Beach
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Letters to the Editor: June 5, 2022
