By Leah Shepard / Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

In Ohio, 13 of 88 counties are maternity care deserts, affecting approximately 97,000 women, according to data provided by March of Dimes. 

A county is classified as a maternity care desert if there are no hospitals providing obstetric care, no birth centers, no OB-GYN’s and no certified nurse midwives, according to March of Dimes. Bianca Zarders, maternal and infant health manager for the Cleveland Market Branch of March of Dimes, said 4,118 babies were born last year to Ohio mothers who live in maternity care deserts.

“In Ohio and on a national scale, a lot of the research shows that a lot of these women may have to drive 30, 40, 50 minutes to get to their nearest birthing hospital,” Zarders said. “And that is so problematic too, because if they’re struggling to pay for gas, or they have multiple kids who are at day care or in school, finding just the time to actually go to a prenatal appointment or to give birth and having to drive 50 minutes to get somewhere is insane.”

The dearth of maternity care in the state is getting worse, said Natasha Takyi-Micah, public policy and external affairs associate at the nonprofit Center for Community Solutions in Cleveland.

“And a few weeks ago, University Hospitals in Ashland announced that they were closing their maternity department,” Takyi-Micah said. So pretty much, that county does not have any hospitals that offer labor and delivery services unfortunately.”

The closing of the maternity department at Ashland comes eight months after University Hospitals closed their maternity department in Portage County in order to consolidate labor and delivery services at UH Geauga Medical Center in Geauga County. 

In a press release, University Hospitals said that declining birth rates and staffing shortages are both reasons for the closing the maternity department in Portage County. They said in July that the Ashland branch is closing for the same reasons. 

“The reason why a lot of hospitals are closing their labor and delivery departments or maternity wards is because of what happened during the pandemic,” Takyi-Micah said. “It seems the pandemic exacerbated many problems that came to staff shortages in the hospitals, and also there was a decline in births.”

Dr. Maria Phillis, an OB-GYN and member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said maternity care deserts force some patients to travel unusually far for appointments, especially if they need specialized care.

“One of our notable things we have to fill gaps for is higher-level care,” she said. “So for example, at one of the institutions that I’ve worked at, we had a patient with significantly poorly controlled diabetes who was coming essentially more than an hour and a half for high-risk appointments and wasn’t able to routinely travel that distance.”

Phillis said that many of these patients travel from very rural areas where obstetric care is unavailable.

Zarders, who works in research, policy and legislation for the March of Dimes as well as community outreach, said the lack of maternity care coupled with chronic health conditions, like diabetes, hypertension and smoking, often lead to poor childbirth outcomes and preterm births.

She said other widespread issues affect whole communities. 

“Another overarching theme is community level issues,” Zarders said. “Like socioeconomic status or environmental factors. Those also fuel the disparity when it comes to receiving adequate prenatal care, especially in communities of color.”

Zarders said that at some hospitals, women are turned away entirely because of lack of care, and that this is something that happens on a national scale.

“I recently heard a story where a woman ended up in an emergency room because she was in labor,” Zanders said. “And the nearest hospital just had an emergency room. And she was actually denied care because they didn’t have an OB person present. And so they actually asked her to go to another hospital.”

Takyi-Micah said the Center for Community Solutions is working to influence policy at the state level to alleviate this problem. 

“We just wrapped up the state budget,” she said. “We have been advocating for doulas to be reimbursed through Medicaid so more people have access to them, since they are one of the solutions to reduce the infant and maternal mortality crisis. So, that language is now included in the budget.”


This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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Groups across the state are working to reduce overdose deaths among minority populations.

According to state data, overdose deaths are on the decline but among Black residents, there were around 68 deaths per 100,000 people last year; more than 51% greater than the overall rate of deaths.

Matt Johnson, board member of the nonprofit CARES Coalition in Franklin County, said the county is struggling with a lack of emergency shelter and medical services for undocumented individuals. The coalition's Community Connectors Project aims to go door-to-door in neighborhoods to help residents access the services they need.

"People who don't necessarily have a visa or a green card, or even health insurance," Johnson outlined. "We need them to be able to go and receive services; for kids to be able to see dentists, especially within our minority population has been a challenge."

The coalition is one of 10 organizations awarded $50,000 grants from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky's Funding for Recovery Equity and Expansion program, a partnership with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services' Kentucky Overdose Response Effort.

In Western Kentucky, the Four Rivers Foundation has expanded mental health and health care services in underserved schools.

Dr. Alex Wright, CEO of Wright Medical who works with the foundation, said gaps in access often result in students either not receiving or experiencing long delays in care. He noted so far, more than 3,000 students have been served in the classroom.

"In some of our districts, we estimated up to 50% of children were lacking any continuity of health care," Wright reported. "Many of these children haven't had a pediatrician or primary care provider, usually since they were an infant or a toddler."

Research points to increased stigma surrounding substance use disorder and mental health in communities of color. According to the Yale School of Medicine, treatment inequities persist. Nationwide in 2018, the majority of Black and Hispanic people diagnosed with the substance use disorder did not receive treatment.


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By Cat Sandoval for WISH-TV.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the WISH-TV-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is on the rise in Indiana, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it's forcing some hospitals to implement visitor restrictions.

Dr. Christopher Doehring, of Franciscan Health in Indianapolis, spoke with News 8 about why this respiratory virus increases during winter months and what hospitals are doing to prevent its spread.

"Like most of the respiratory viruses, as the weather turns cooler and people spend more time inside and around each other, its a just a highly contagious respiratory virus," Doehring said. "Like all respiratory viruses, we tend to see an increase in cases this time of year."

Holiday get-togethers can help spread the virus.

"You start to see around Thanksgiving time, you start having families coming together," Doehring said. "They're spending times in doors and it's multiple generations together. It's a natural epidemiologic phenomenon."

According to medical experts, RSV causes infections in the lungs. In healthy adults and older children, symptoms are mild, similar to the common cold.

RSV can be prevented by using good hygiene, such as washing hands and avoiding touching one's face.

Doehring said babies, premature babies, and immunocompromised elderly adults can experience severe cough, shortness of breath, and pneumonia, or even death. Doehring recommends getting vaccinated.

"Once you have the symptoms or are under the weather, take the time to recover, heal, and minimize exposing others as best as you can," Doehring said.

At Franciscan Health Hospital, masks and hand sanitizers stations are readily available to prevent the spread. Those under the age of 18 because younger visitors are more likely to spread respiratory viruses. Other hospitals in Marion County are doing the same.

Doehring says he has seen an increase of RSV cases, which is typical this time of year, but it's not alarming.

"Certainly in our hospitals and around other hospitals in central Indiana, we're not at a point where we're overrun or overcrowded in our ICUs or emergency department," Doehring said.


Cat Sandoval wrote this article for WISH-TV.


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A coalition of Montana groups will rally at the Capitol Wednesday to advocate for the protection of Medicaid expansion, which legislators will debate this session before the program's scheduled expiration in June.

The state's 10-year-old Medicaid expansion program covers 75,000 low-income Montanans at an annual cost of about $1 billion, according to KFF Health News. The state picks up about 10% of the tab.

Kristen Stewart of Billings is a caregiver for her 90-year-old grandmother, and enrolled in Medicaid herself. As an organizer with the advocacy group Big Sky 55+, she noted many Medicaid enrollees work but the work is often undervalued.

"Medicaid supports a lot of people who are doing unpaid work," Stewart pointed out. "Things that were we to monetize, you would see an economic boost from their production level, often more than the cost of their care."

The Gianforte administration already tightened eligibility for the program, cutting the number of enrollees by nearly 40% between May 2023 and October 2024. The program currently covers nondisabled adults ages 19 to 64 who make less than $21,000 a year.

Jeannie Brown, a bus driver for the Belgrade Public School District and a full-time caregiver and legal guardian for her teenage granddaughter, said if Medicaid expansion does not get reauthorized, she will be on a "slippery slope."

"Because I'm 60 years old and I'm having my own health issues after being a caregiver, it's hard work and it takes a toll on you physically, financially and emotionally," Brown explained. "I'm hoping these legislators really take all of these things into consideration and reauthorize it."

Any laws passed on the issue could also affect the state's behavioral health services, which Gov. Greg Gianforte has made a priority.